King's Station, also known as Moore's and Hollandsville, was a

stagecoach A stagecoach is a four-wheeled public transport coach used to carry paying passengers and light packages on journeys long enough to need a change of horses. It is strongly sprung and generally drawn by four horses although some versions are dra ...

station of the Butterfield Overland Mail 1st Division between 1858-1861 in

southern California Southern California (commonly shortened to SoCal) is a geographic and cultural region that generally comprises the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. It includes the Los Angeles metropolitan area, the second most populous urban ...

. List of Butterfield Overland Mail Stations, from New York Times, October 14 1858, "Itinerary of the Route"
/ref> The

adobe Adobe ( ; ) is a building material made from earth and organic materials. is Spanish for '' mudbrick''. In some English-speaking regions of Spanish heritage, such as the Southwestern United States, the term is used to refer to any kind of ...

building also served other travelers on the Stockton - Los Angeles Road, and other uses, until its 1928 destruction.

Geography

King's Station was located in the lower section of

San Francisquito Canyon San Francisquito Canyon is a canyon created through erosion of the Sierra Pelona Mountains by the San Francisquito Creek (Santa Clara River tributary), San Francisquito Creek, in Los Angeles County, California, Los Angeles County, Southern Califor ...

, in the Sierra Pelona Mountains. It was south of Widow Smith's Station near San Francisquito Pass, and was north of Lyons Station in the present-day Newhall neighborhood of Santa Clarita.Waterman L. Ormsby, Lyle H. Wright, Josephine M. Bynum, ''The Butterfield Overland Mail: Only Through Passenger on the First Westbound Stage.'' Henry E. Huntington Library and Art Gallery, 2007. pp. viii, 167, 173. Its present-day site is along San Francisquito Canyon Road, about north of its intersection with Copper Hill Drive.

History

The watering place on

San Francisquito Creek San Francisquito Creek (Spanish for "Little San Francisco" - the "little" referring to size of the settlement compared to Mission San Francisco de Asís) is a creek that flows into southwest San Francisco Bay in California, United States. Histo ...

was first known as "Moore's" in 1854, and was located on the Stockton - Los Angeles Road wagon route, on the section between the

San Fernando Valley The San Fernando Valley, known locally as the Valley, is an urbanized valley in Los Angeles County, California. Located to the north of the Los Angeles Basin, it contains a large portion of the City of Los Angeles, as well as unincorporated ar ...

and the

San Joaquin Valley The San Joaquin Valley ( ; es, Valle de San Joaquín) is the area of the Central Valley of the U.S. state of California that lies south of the Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta and is drained by the San Joaquin River. It comprises seven ...

Butterfield Overland Mail

By 1858, when the

New York Herald The ''New York Herald'' was a large-distribution newspaper based in New York City that existed between 1835 and 1924. At that point it was acquired by its smaller rival the '' New-York Tribune'' to form the '' New York Herald Tribune''. Hi ...

reporter Waterman L. Ormsby passed through on the

Butterfield Overland Mail Butterfield Overland Mail (officially the Overland Mail Company)Waterman L. Ormsby, edited by Lyle H. Wright and Josephine M. Bynum, "The Butterfield Overland Mail", The Huntington Library, San Marino, California, 1991. was a stagecoach service i ...

it was known as King's Station. In 1860 the station was referred to as Hollandsville. King's Station was north of Lyons Station (Hart's Station) in

Santa Clarita Santa Clarita (; Spanish for "Little St. Clare") is a city in northwestern Los Angeles County in the U.S. state of California. With a 2020 census population of 228,673, it is the third-largest city by population in Los Angeles County, the 17t ...

. It was south of Widow Smith's Station (Clayton's Station, Major Gordon's Station) in upper San Francisquito Canyon near San Francisquito Pass.

Raggio Ranch — Hollands

About 1880, Charles Raggio, acquired the ranch and adobe station building from the Perea family, and it became known as the Raggio Ranch. Later in 1894, the adobe was a post office on the Raggio Ranch for the surrounding settlement known as Hollands or Hollandsville.

St. Francis Dam flood and destruction

In March 1928 the massive flood caused by the collapse of the

St. Francis Dam The St. Francis Dam was a concrete gravity dam located in San Francisquito Canyon in Los Angeles County, California, United States, built from 1924 to 1926 to serve Los Angeles's growing water needs. It catastrophically failed in 1928 due to a d ...

washed away the old stagecoach station, along with the Hollands and Raggio Ranch buildings. The dam had been upstream in

. The only present day indicator of the station's location is the Ruiz family cemetery, that survived by being just above the flood's crest. The station had been located just below the cemetery. The Ruiz Family Cemetery remains on private land, at 29615 North San Francisquito Canyon Road in

. A mobile home, placed on the property in 1963, is located below the cemetery. The Raggio Ranch was rebuilt and remained in the family until after the 1940s.Raggio Ranch, San Franciscquito Canyon
/ref>

References

External links

Santa Clarita Valley History in Pictures: Raggio Ranch and San Francisquito Canyon

Los Angeles Times (December 30, 1989): "Owners Treat Cemetery as a Monument to the Past"

Deadwrite’s Dailies (March 31, 2011), Tag Archives: "Ruiz Cemetery, In the Wake of the St. Francis Dam"
{{Former settlements of Los Angeles County, California Butterfield Overland Mail in California Former settlements in Los Angeles County, California History of Los Angeles County, California Santa Clarita, California Sierra Pelona Ridge 1858 establishments in California Stagecoach stations in California Transportation buildings and structures in Los Angeles County, California