| Newhall Pass | |
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| San Fernando Pass, Fremont Pass | |
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Newhall Pass
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| Elevation | 750+ ft (229+ m) |
| Traversed by | Interstate 5 |
| Location | |
| Location | Los Angeles County, California |
| Range | Santa Susana Mountains/San Gabriel Mountains |
| Topo map | Oat Mountain, CA |
Newhall Pass is a 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 originally discovered in August 1769 by Spanish explorer Gaspar de Portolà, 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.
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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.[1]
In 1853, a Los Angeles businessman, Henry Clay Wiley installed a windlass atop the Fremont Pass to speed and ease the accent and decent of the steep Santa Clara Divide, and 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 suppling Fort Tejon.[2]
The steep pass was made easier for stagecoach traffic with a 30-foot (9.1 m) deep cut made by Phineas Banning in 1854 as part of a road he built to provide service to Fort Tejon. This slot-like roadway was called Beale's Cut,[3] and it 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 film actor Tom Mix is filmed jumping over the pass.[4] John Ford used the location in at least four films over a twenty year period beginning as early as 1917.
In 1861, a landowner and surveyor named Edward Fitzgerald Beale was appointed by President Abraham Lincoln as Surveyor General of California and Nevada. In 1863 the cut was deepened to 90 feet (27.4 m) by Beale and he had the cut subsequently named after him. The cut was used by the Butterfield Overland Mail, a stagecoach that operated mail between St. Louis, Missouri and San Francisco. Beale's Cut lasted as a transportation passage through the present day Newhall Pass locale until construction of the Newhall Tunnel was completed in 1910.
Still in existence today, it is no longer passable by automobiles. Sometime in the late 20th century it suffered a partial collapse, and now is about 30 feet (9.1 m) 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 is named after 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 properites in the state, the most significant being the 46,460-acre (188 km2) 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.
Newhall Pass remains a main traffic route, as the Newhall Pass interchange of Interstate 5 (Golden State Freeway) and State Route 14 (Antelope Valley Freeway), as well as Sierra Highway, Foothill Boulevard, and San Fernando Road travel through the pass, Metrolink's Antelope Valley Line and the Union Pacific Railroad (formerly Southern Pacific Railroad) goes through the area via the San Fernando Tunnel. The Sierra Highway crossing was once the Newhall Tunnel, built by Los Angeles County in 1910 to replace the cut.