There are a lot of fall festivals in Southern California, but not many take place in ghost towns. This Sunday, though, at the third annual Mentryville Harvest Festival, which will take place at the base of Pico Canyon just west of Newhall, you can celebrate the history of a pioneer western town.
"It was the site of the first commercially successful oil well in California, and in fact in the western United States," said Paul Higgins, an educational consultant and founding president of the Friends of Mentryville, who are sponsoring the festival.
For the Record
Los Angeles Times Friday October 9, 1998 Ventura County Edition Metro Part B Page 7 Zones Desk 1 inches; 26 words Type of Material: Correction
Harvest festival--A story in Thursday's Calendar Weekend section gave an incorrect date for the Mentryville Harvest Festival. The event will be held from 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Saturday.
The tiny one-block town, he said, consists of a one-room 1885 schoolhouse, a vintage blacksmith barn and the restored two-story mansion of oil superintendent Charles Alexander "Alex" Mentry, who first discovered oil at the site in 1876.
"It started an oil rush, and Mentryville became an oil boomtown like the gold boomtowns of 1849," said Higgins.
"At its highest point, in 1880, there were 100 families living there. But by 1900, the richest deposits were depleted, and by the 1930s the workers had moved on. It was never meant to be a permanent town."
The well, known as Pico No. 4, was the first commercially successful oil well in the western U.S. Eventually it was acquired by Standard Oil and later by Chevron Corp. It continued running until 1990--making it the longest-running oil well in the world.
In 1995, Mentryville--which sustained extensive damage in the Northridge earthquake--was acquired by the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy as part of the 3,035-acre Santa Clarita Woodlands Park.
The festival, a fund-raiser that drew 4,000 people last year, is an attempt to recapture Mentryville's 1880s glory, said Higgins. Everyone is invited to come in costume.
According to organizer Sandi Ramirez, there will be woodworking and spinning demonstrations, food vendors and such old-fashioned entertainment as a magician on a unicycle, a trick roper, a strolling barbershop quartet and a 1920s jug band.
There will also be an Old West exhibition on the safe use of firearms, presented by the Hole in the Wall Gang, and miniature train rides.
Historical characters such as "Tiburcio Vasquez," an infamous area bandit (played by Ruben Zamora), will wander the premises, and adults can enjoy an antique auto show.
A special highlight, said Ramirez, will be a narrated presentation by docent Cyndi Ralles, combined with musical selections from Mentryville's past, played by the 45-piece Santa Clarita Valley Concert Band.
