I’d attach a kind estimate that 99% of the dear citizens of Santa Clarita know not a thing about that old, beige building on the northwest corner of Market Street and Railroad Avenue. It’s the old Courthouse Building and for nearly a century, was the navel of the Santa Clarita universe. I had al most completely forgotten I once rented space there in the early 1970s. My Scared o’ Bears Ranch World Corporate Headquarters had deep shag carpets in circus orange and an old-fashioned frosted glass door, sort of a cross between 1940s private eye/Jimi Hendrix’s publicist office.   A friend called last weekend. He said our landmark Courthouse Building had been sold. The new owners were planning on demolishing it, which would be a sin and yet another slap in the face of Santa Clarita’s identity.  Back in 1878, Walter S. Newhall, son of Henry Mayo Newhall (who owned the entire SCV), built a mercantile store on the original spot, a blink after the town of Newhall was founded. Walter Newhall owned and operated it until 1896.   Saloon owner James Gully then bought it and operated it until the 1920s when he sold it to William Mayhue. Lloyd Houghton built the original Hap-a-Lan Dance Hall somewhere between 1920 and 1923. Houghton had served in World War I, came back to Newhall, then married William’s daughter Opal. That’s when he opened the dance hall in her father’s former store.  “A little liquor was served,” Houghton once remarked, “during those Prohibition years, but not out in public.” The men folk would sometimes sneak out by the railroad tracks to sneak a shot of illegal moonshine.  Much of the live music was provided by Black Dixieland and jazz bands. Admission was a dollar. Sometimes, entire families would arrive. Kids would sleep on the benches along the walls while their parents danced.  The Hap-a-Lan was sometimes called the Hapaland or Hapalan, depending who was editing the copy. The original sign atop the entrance, facing Market, was Hap-a-Lan.  When the St. Francis Dam burst in 1928, the hall was used as a temporary morgue. About 75 corpses were stored in there. You see, the Hap-a-Lan was THE community center for this valley, back when, from Castaic to Acton to Chatsworth, we had less than 1,000 souls. Dances were held there, community meetings, movies, bake sales. After the dam disaster and the hall converted to a morgue with bodies of loved ones stacked — understandably, people just stopped going in there, especially for social events.  Historian and water works mogul, A.B. Perkins, orchestrated the purchase of the building in 1933 for the Masons. Almost exactly around the same time, the bottom floor was leased out to the county as the local courthouse, hence the name.   In 1951, C.M. MacDougall entered the building for the second time. When he first went there in the 1920s, it was as a dancer. When he came back in 1951, it was as the local judge. Interestingly, “Mac” had to take the bar exam over six times before he passed — and this was WHILE he was the judge. Many a historic case was tried in that little courtroom, like the 10-year-litigation for William S. Hart’s multimillion-dollar estate and the dramatic murder trial of Richard John Jensen, the SCV’s only known serial killer.  From ’51 to ’75, ownership of the building changed hands several times. For a while, the Rafters — the predecessor to the modern Canyon Theatre Guild — held their plays in the upper floor. I can’t remember the exact year — but I was a kid when it happened. The local theater group was holding dress rehearsals when a particularly Falstaffian thespian was marching across stage. He fell through the floor and into a church meeting on the floor below. The same maple dance floor that was in the Hap-a-Lan is still upstairs today where they host many weekly Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. For about 70 years now, they’ve been holding Alcoholics Anonymous meetings on the top floor of the courthouse. Several thousand broken souls have been put back together on that top floor.  Of course, A.A. is one of the most flexible organizations around. It would be inconvenient, but doable, for them to find a new home for the hundreds who anonymously attend meetings (seven days a week, many different hours). But it would be a huge community sin to knock down that building. A sin.  I have a solution. Either through some consortium of investors and/or the city of Santa Clarita, buy the building. Rent out office space. And — turn part of the Old Courthouse into a museum of the St. Francis Dam Disaster. I’d be happy to help. I know more about the St. Francis Dam than even Frank Rock. I say this because I think I can still run faster than Frank. Seriously though. Via the SCV Historical Society, Frank, me, Leon Worden (don’t you guys just LOVE how I’m volunteering all y’all?) and absolutely nobody from the SCV Ladies’ Auxiliary, we could put together one heck of an ongoing display and tribute to both the courthouse and remembrance of one of America’s greatest manmade disasters. Plus, it would be a serious anchor to the wonderful revitalization of Downtown Newhall and a go-to place for everyone from local students to tourists.  In my lifetime, we’ve lost not just actual physical historical buildings that should have been saved, but the memory of who we were as a community. When you rewrite, alter or forget a town’s identity, you lose part of not just its soul, but — your soul. This is our culture, so often, poorly taught or not taught at all.   One thing about Santa Clarita? As historian and growing up here since the 1950s, I’ve learned and watched that our valley is a can-do community — 1876 or 2025. Generations have come and gone, but we’re still a people who roll up our sleeves and get the task done.  Let’s save The Courthouse Building.  John Boston is a local writer. His bookstore is at johnlovesamerica.com/bookstore. The post John Boston | City Hall, Help Save the Old Courthouse! appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal. ...read more read less