Three Points, California
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Three Points is a scenic, sparsely populated
unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a parcel of land that is not governed by a local general-purpose municipal corporation. (At p. 178.) They may be governed or serviced by an encompassing unit (such as a county) or another branch of the state (such as th ...
at the northwestern edge of
Los Angeles County Los Angeles County, officially the County of Los Angeles and sometimes abbreviated as LA County, is the most populous county in the United States, with 9,663,345 residents estimated in 2023. Its population is greater than that of 40 individua ...
, in the northern
Sierra Pelona Mountains The Sierra Pelona, also known as the Sierra Pelona Ridge or the Sierra Pelona Mountains and originally known as the Liebre Mountains, is a mountain ridge in the Transverse Ranges in Southern California. Located in northwest Los Angeles County, t ...
foothills and southwest of the
Antelope Valley The Antelope Valley is a valley primarily located in northern Los Angeles County, California, United States and the southeast portion of Kern County, California, Kern County, and constitutes the western tip of the Mojave Desert. It is situated ...
in
Southern California Southern California (commonly shortened to SoCal) is a geographic and Cultural area, cultural List of regions of California, region that generally comprises the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. Its densely populated coastal reg ...
, United States.Phil Sneiderman,"End of the Road Remote Cafe Struggles to Stay in Business in Changing Times," ''Los Angeles Times,'' April 12, 1995, Document ID 21360071
/ref>


Geography

The settlement is on the northern edge of the
Angeles National Forest The Angeles National Forest (ANF) of the United States Forest Service is located in the San Gabriel Mountains and Sierra Pelona Mountains, primarily within Los Angeles County in Southern California. The ANF manages a majority of the San Gabri ...
,Nikki Usher, Zeke Minaya and Eric Malnic, "Residents in 3 Tiny High Desert Towns on a Nervous Fire Watch," ''Los Angeles Times.'' July 16, 2004, page B-1
/ref> on the east side of Oakgrove Canyon where it opens out into Pine Canyon, 17.5 miles (28 km) north of Castaic.Geographic Names Information System
/ref> Its elevation is 3,424 feet.Topozone maps
/ref> A roadside welcome sign said in 1991 that the Three Points population was 150. In 2008 a newer sign gave the population as 200. ::


History


1880s — 1970s

Three Points was homesteaded in 1892 by the Lafferty family, 83-year-old Laura May Lafferty told a reporter in 1991. Her grandmother acted as a midwife, and her father, Ben Cherbbono, was a
French Canadian French Canadians, referred to as Canadiens mainly before the nineteenth century, are an ethnic group descended from French people, French colonists first arriving in Canada (New France), France's colony of Canada in 1608. The vast majority of ...
muleskinner who led a team that helped grade the Ridge Route highway in the early part of the 20th century. Gookins Lake in the area was named after her mother's family, she said. In those days, Three Points was graced with a
one-room school One-room schoolhouses, or One-room schools, have been commonplace throughout rural portions of various countries, including Prussia, Norway, Sweden, the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Portugal, and Spa ...
house, Pine Canyon School, where in 1953 Mrs. Lillie Knighton taught children aged 6 to 14; in midwinter, a “huge pot-bellied stove . . . hissed with heat.” The school also acted as a
community center A community centre, community center, or community hall is a public location where members of a community gather for group activities, social support, public information, and other purposes. They may be open for the whole community or for a sp ...
; movies related to classwork were shown each Thursday night, open to adults.Jerry Hulse, "One-Room School Still Functions," ''Los Angeles Times,'' January 26, 1953, page 2 Apart from the school, a tavern variously called the Three Point Cafe, Maxine's, and Nancy's Up the Road Cafe, was another center of social life. Bert Gookins was the first owner and builder — sometime in 1912, or maybe 1924, Bert Hart, Gookins’ grandson, recalled. It was a grocery store once, Hart said, and perhaps the restaurant and bar were added in the 1930s or 1940s. The building was occasionally occupied by a traveling dentist who used a foot-powered drill.


1980s on

Michael and Anita Felix bought the cafe in 1984 with the idea of using its park-like grounds for special events. Two years later, Anita had a
heart attack A myocardial infarction (MI), commonly known as a heart attack, occurs when Ischemia, blood flow decreases or stops in one of the coronary arteries of the heart, causing infarction (tissue death) to the heart muscle. The most common symptom ...
and so the Felixes began leasing it to other operators. When Maxine Martin had it in 1991 it was a combination bar, restaurant, social club and video-rental store featuring a decor that included In November 1994 the Felixes resumed managing the cafe — but they opened it only on Saturdays and Sundays, and soon thereafter they put it up for sale. In 2008 it was a private residence: An unusable gasoline pump in front was purely decorative, and the only sign of commerce was an outside
vending machine A vending machine is an automated machine that dispenses items such as snacks, beverages, cigarettes, and lottery tickets to consumers after cash, a credit card, or other forms of payment are inserted into the machine or payment is otherwise m ...
that dispensed
bottled water Bottled water is drinking water (e.g., Water well, well water, distilled water, Reverse osmosis, reverse osmosis water, mineral water, or Spring (hydrology), spring water) packaged in Plastic bottle, plastic or Glass bottle, glass water bott ...
.


Government

As an unincorporated community, there is no local government, but there is a Three Points–Liebre Mountain Town Council, which in March 2009 was working on a community standards district document and on emergency preparedness.


Education

There is no longer a public school in the settlement. Three Points is part of the Westside Union School District of West Lancaster, which operates Del Sur, Joe Walker, Hill View, Cottonwood, Rancho Vista, Sundown, Valley View, Leona Valley, and Quartz Hill schools, through the eighth grade. The community is within the
Antelope Valley Union High School District The Antelope Valley Union High School District (A.V.U.H.S.D.) is located in the Antelope Valley area of California, in northern Los Angeles County Los Angeles County, officially the County of Los Angeles and sometimes abbreviated as LA Co ...
and the Antelope Valley Community College District.


Library

The Los Angeles County public library's Antelope Valley
bookmobile A bookmobile, or mobile library, is a vehicle designed for use as a library. They have been known by many names throughout history, including traveling library, library wagon, book wagon, book truck, library-on-wheels, and book auto service. Boo ...
is at Three Points from 10 to 10:45 a.m. on Saturdays.


Fire danger

Three Points was settled in a wooded valley shrouded in volatile pine trees, near a mountain fittingly named Burnt Peak, and the town has been threatened by
wildfire A wildfire, forest fire, or a bushfire is an unplanned and uncontrolled fire in an area of Combustibility and flammability, combustible vegetation. Depending on the type of vegetation present, a wildfire may be more specifically identified as a ...
s many times over the decades. The earliest story about Three Points in the ''Los Angeles Times,'' the closest metropolitan newspaper to the settlement, is dated August 24, 1927, and, like many such articles thereafter, it was reporting on a massive fire in the forested area. Twenty-two years later, in 1949, another fire in the canyon made the news: In July 2004, the ''Times'' reported:


References


External links

{{authority control Unincorporated communities in Los Angeles County, California Sierra Pelona Ridge Populated places established in 1892 1892 establishments in California Unincorporated communities in California Antelope Valley