Newhall Pass

Newhall Pass is a low mountain pass in Los Angeles County, California. Historically called Fremont Pass and San Fernando Pass, with Beale's Cut, it separates the Santa Susana Mountains from the San Gabriel Mountains. Although the pass was visited in August 1769 by Catalan explorer Gaspar de Portolá, it eventually was named for Henry Newhall, a significant businessman in the area during the 19th century.

Newhall Pass links the San Fernando Valley to the Santa Clarita Valley and is a main entry to the Greater Los Angeles area. The pass is known for the massive Newhall Pass interchange and the historic San Fernando Tunnel.

Weather conditions in the pass can vary from triple-digit heat in the summer to rare below freezing temperatures in winter. Snow is possible from December to February, but is quite uncommon; when it does occur, it can lead to heavy traffic and accidents. The pass also is susceptible to heavy flooding during La Niña and El Niño events. Wildfires have also occasionally closed down the pass and California State Route 14.

History

Newhall Pass was initially named 'Fremont Pass' for General John C. Frémont, who was thought to have passed through it in 1847 on his way to sign the Treaty of Cahuenga, but he actually went slightly east of the pass on the El Camino Viejo.

Lyons Station

In 1853, a Los Angeles businessman, Henry Clay Wiley, installed a windlass atop the Fremont Pass to speed and ease the ascent and descent of the steep Santa Clara Divide. He also built a tavern, hotel and stable nearby. In 1854, Wiley sold out to Sanford and Cyrus Lyon and it began to be called Lyons Station. At the same time, Phineas Banning obtained the business of supplying Fort Tejon.

Beale's Cut

The steep pass was made easier to cross with a deep slot-like road cut by Charles H. Brindley, Andrés Pico, and James R. Vineyard, to whom the State of California awarded a twenty-year contract to maintain the turnpike and collect tolls. Thus, the "San Fernando Mountain," the most daunting obstacle along the Fort Tejon Road, the main inland route from Los Angeles to the north, was cut through. Butterfield Overland Mail, a stagecoach that operated mail between St. Louis, Missouri, and San Francisco, began using it directly.

In 1861, a landowner and surveyor named Edward Beale was appointed by President Abraham Lincoln as the federal Surveyor General of California and Nevada. Beale challenged General Pico's loyalty to the new president and in 1863, Beale was awarded the right to collect the toll in the pass. Beale maintained rights to the cut for the next twenty years and so it became known as "Beale's Cut."

Beale's Cut was eventually deepened to . It lasted as a transportation passage in the neighborhood of present-day Newhall Pass until construction of the Newhall Tunnel was completed in 1910.

Beale's Cut appeared in many silent western movies. The location became a favorite of movie producers like John Ford and D. W. Griffith. In Ford's 1923 film ''Three Jumps Ahead'', American cowboy star Tom Mix is filmed jumping over the pass, although it has been widely debated among film historians whether Mix himself made the jump, with any of a number of stuntmen claiming credit for it while some experts believe the jump was achieved purely through special effects. John Ford used the location in at least four films over a twenty-year period beginning as early as 1917.

Still in existence today, it is no longer passable by automobiles. It suffered a partial collapse during the Northridge Earthquake, on January 17, 1994, and now is about deep. It is visible from the Sierra Highway about one mile north from the intersection of The Old Road and Sierra Highway, just after the first bridge under SR 14. It lies between Sierra Highway and the new freeway, about a quarter mile to the northeast of a stone marker. Beale's Cut is difficult to find today because it is fenced off and not close enough to the Sierra Highway to be easily seen.

Newhall Pass

In 1910, the Newhall Auto Tunnel was built a quarter-mile northwest of Beale's Cut. However, two-way traffic through the tunnel was slow because it was only wide.

The California Division of Highways decided to replace the tunnel. In July 1938, work started to remove the rock above the tunnel to create a four-lane highway. The road was first known as Highway 6, then Highway 14, and finally the present-day Sierra Highway. The cut for the tunnel is located to the west of today's Highway 14.

The pass is named after the local businessman Henry Newhall, whose land holdings formed the basis of the city of Santa Clarita. Newhall came to California from Saugus, Massachusetts during the California Gold Rush in 1850. Over time he purchased a number of properties in the state, the most significant being the Rancho San Francisco in northern Los Angeles County. Within this territory, he granted a right-of-way to Southern Pacific through what is now Newhall Pass, and he also sold them a portion of the land, upon which the company built a town they named after him: Newhall. The first station built on the line he named for his hometown, Saugus. After his death in 1882 his family incorporated the Newhall Land and Farming Company

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