The Santa Susana Pass, originally Simi Pass, is a low

mountain pass A mountain pass is a navigable route through a mountain range or over a ridge. Since mountain ranges can present formidable barriers to travel, passes have played a key role in trade, war, and both Human migration, human and animal migration t ...

in the

Simi Hills The Simi Hills are a low rocky mountain range of the Transverse Ranges in eastern Ventura County, California, Ventura County and western Los Angeles County, California, Los Angeles County, of Southern California, United States. The range runs ma ...

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 ...

, connecting the

San Fernando Valley The San Fernando Valley, known locally as the Valley, is an urbanized valley in Los Angeles County, Los Angeles County, California. Situated to the north of the Los Angeles Basin, it comprises a large portion of Los Angeles, the Municipal corpo ...

and

Los Angeles Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

neighborhood of Chatsworth, to the city of

Simi Valley Simi Valley (; Chumash: ''Shimiyi'') is a city in the valley of the same name in southeastern Ventura County, California, United States. It is from Downtown Los Angeles, making it part of the Greater Los Angeles Area. Simi Valley borders Th ...

and eponymous valley. It has been featured in numerous movies, including '' Shooting High'' (1940), '' Man's Genesis'' (1912), '' Judith of Bethulia'' (1914), ''

Jack and the Beanstalk "Jack and the Beanstalk" is an English fairy tale with ancient origins. It appeared as "The Story of Jack Spriggins and the Enchanted Bean" in 1734 4th edition :File:Round about our Coal Fire, or, Christmas Entertainments, 4th edn, 1734.pdf, On C ...

'' (1917) and '' Range Warfare'' (1935).

Natural history

The pass is the division between the

to the south and

Santa Susana Mountains The Santa Susana Mountains are a transverse range of mountains in Southern California, north of the city of Los Angeles, in the United States. The range runs east-west, separating the San Fernando and Simi valleys on its south from the Santa ...

to the north, and forms the most critical

wildlife corridor A wildlife corridor, also known as a habitat corridor, or green corridor, is a designated area habitat (ecology), that connects wildlife populations that have been separated by human activities or structures, such as development, roads, or land ...

and habitat linkage between them. The scenery is made up of

sandstone Sandstone is a Clastic rock#Sedimentary clastic rocks, clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of grain size, sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate mineral, silicate grains, Cementation (geology), cemented together by another mineral. Sand ...

formations in massive outcroppings and numerous boulders, with

California chaparral and woodlands The California chaparral and woodlands is a terrestrial ecoregion of southwestern Oregon, northern, central, and southern California (United States) and northwestern Baja California (Mexico), located on the west coast of North America. It is a ...

ecoregion An ecoregion (ecological region) is an ecological and geographic area that exists on multiple different levels, defined by type, quality, and quantity of environmental resources. Ecoregions cover relatively large areas of land or water, and c ...

, with oak savannahs, chaparral shrub forest, and native bunchgrass plant communities in between. The perennial water sources provide diverse habitat for birds, mammals, and reptiles.

History

Native American

The Santa Susana Pass was at the juncture of the Native American Tongva-Fernandeño, Chumash-Venturaño, and Tataviam-Fernandeño tribal lands and was first crossed by their trail route, and used for an estimated 8,000 years.

Under Spain and Mexico

The first Europeans to use the pass were members of the Spanish Portolà expedition (1769–1770), the first European land entry and exploration of the present-day state of

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

. The expedition traversed the pass on January 15, 1770, heading east to a campground that later became part of

Mission San Fernando Rey de España Mission San Fernando Rey de España is a Spanish missions in California, Spanish mission in the Mission Hills, Los Angeles, Mission Hills community of Los Angeles, California. The mission was founded on September 8, 1797 at the site of Achooyko ...

. After secularization of the mission in 1834, San Fernando Valley rancheros used the trail. A rough wagon road evolved.

Early statehood

American newspapers in California first referred to the pass as Simi Pass from 1857 when the '' Los Angeles Star'' wrote of the capture of the outlaw Juan Flores there. That name continued in use, declining from the late 1880s until 1911 in the ''Eagle Rock Sentinel''. It began to be referred to as Santa Susana Pass in the '' Los Angeles Herald'' 18 September 1887, being used with increasing frequency thereafter. In 1859, the California Legislature appropriated $15,000 (with additional funding provided by Los Angeles and Santa Barbara Counties) towards improving the old wagon road into a new stagecoach road, now known as the Old Santa Susana Stage Road.Old Stagecoach Trail at ''www.trails.com''
/ref>Link, Tom: ''Universal City – North Hollywood, a Centenniel Portrait'', Windsor Publications, 1991, , p. 25 The precipitous portion of the route down from the summit on the San Fernando Valley side was called the Devil's Slide; horses were usually blindfolded and chains were used to augment brakes on the steep descent. Passengers debarked and walked. The outbreak of the American Civil War in 1861 disrupted mail service along the

Butterfield Overland Mail Butterfield Overland Mail (officially 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 in ...

's southern stagecoach route from

St. Louis, Missouri St. Louis ( , sometimes referred to as St. Louis City, Saint Louis or STL) is an Independent city (United States), independent city in the U.S. state of Missouri. It lies near the confluence of the Mississippi River, Mississippi and the Miss ...

via

El Paso El Paso (; ; or ) is a city in and the county seat of El Paso County, Texas, United States. The 2020 United States census, 2020 population of the city from the United States Census Bureau, U.S. Census Bureau was 678,815, making it the List of ...

, Fort Yuma and Los Angeles and on to San Francisco via the

Tejon Pass The Tejon Pass , previously known as ''Portezuelo de Cortes'', ''Portezuela de Castac'', and Fort Tejon Pass is a mountain pass between the southwest end of the Tehachapi Mountains and northeastern San Emigdio Mountains, linking Southern Calif ...

, which had begun its run in 1858. To compensate, the government contracted the Butterfield Company to carry mail between

and

San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

via the new wagon road over the Santa Susana Pass. The first overland mail stage run through the pass took place on April 6, 1861. The main route climbs through what is now Santa Susana Pass State Historic Park, with a branch in L.A. City Park 'Chatsworth Park South.' It was an important artery linking the

Los Angeles Basin The Los Angeles Basin is a sedimentary Structural basin, basin located in Southern California, in a region known as the Peninsular Ranges. The basin is also connected to an wikt:anomalous, anomalous group of east–west trending chains of mountai ...

and inland

Ventura County Ventura County () is a county located in the southern part of the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 843,843. The largest city is Oxnard, and the county seat is the city of Ventura. Ventura County comprises ...

, and was part of the main route for travel by

stagecoach A stagecoach (also: stage coach, stage, road coach, ) 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 ...

between Los Angeles and San Francisco from 1861 until the opening of rail traffic between the cities in 1876. The Old Santa Susana Stage Road is listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

. Part of the stage road is also a Historic-Cultural Monument of Ventura County and of the City of Los Angeles under the name 'Old Stagecoach Trail.'

Late 19th and 20th century

In 1893, a new road north with a better grade was surveyed, "The New Santa Susanna Pass Road through William's Canon", that bypassed the deteriorating Devil's Slide in 1895. It was commonly named the Chatsworth Grade Road, and when the Santa Susana Pass State Historic Park was established in 1998, they named this road ''El Camino Nuevo'' (the New Road). The 1895 New Road continued in use until the current Santa Susana Pass Road was built in 1917. The 1917 road was the first automobile route between the San Fernando and Simi Valleys. It also was the main northbound 'coast road' to Santa Barbara and

, until the Conejo Grade in

between

Conejo Valley The Conejo Valley (Spanish language, Spanish: ''Valle del Conejo'', meaning "Valley of the Rabbit") is a region spanning both southeastern Ventura County, California, Ventura County and northwestern Los Angeles County, California, Los Angeles C ...

and the

Oxnard Plain The Oxnard Plain is a large coastal plain in southwest Ventura County, California, United States surrounded by the mountains of the Transverse Ranges. The cities of Oxnard, Camarillo, Port Hueneme and much of Ventura as well as the unincorpo ...

on "Camino Real Viejo" (the Old Royal Road, now

U.S. Route 101 U.S. Route 101, or U.S. Highway 101 (US 101), is a major north–south highway that traverses the states of California, Oregon, and Washington on the West Coast of the United States. It is part of the United States Numbered Highway Syst ...

), was improved. In 1968 State Route 118, the "Simi Valley–San Fernando Valley Freeway" opened, north of the old auto road as the latest route across the Pass. In 1994 it was renamed the "Ronald Reagan Freeway". The pass area became famous from being seen in many movies, primarily

Westerns The Western is a genre of fiction typically set in the American frontier (commonly referred to as the "Old West" or the "Wild West") between the California Gold Rush of 1849 and the closing of the frontier in 1890, and commonly associated wit ...

, filmed from the 1920s to the 1950s here at the Spahn, Iverson, Bell Moving Picture, and

Corriganville __NOTOC__ Corriganville Movie Ranch was a working film studio and movie ranch for outdoor location shooting, as well as a Western (genre), Western-themed tourist attraction. The ranch, owned by actor and stuntman Ray "Crash" Corrigan, was locate ...

Movie Ranches. The area became infamous in the late 1960s with the

Manson Family The Manson Family (known among its members as the Family) was a Intentional community, commune, gang, and cult led by criminal Charles Manson that was active in California in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The group at its peak consisted of a ...

headquartered at the Spahn Ranch, near the top of the stage road's Devil's Slide. To the south of the old stage road is Sage Ranch Park and the

Santa Susana Field Laboratory The Santa Susana Field Laboratory (SSFL), formerly known as Rocketdyne, is a complex of industrial research and development facilities located on a portion of Southern California in an unincorporated area of Ventura County in the Simi Hills betw ...

. Immediately to the north of Route 118 at the pass top is Rocky Peak Park, a part of the Rim of the Valley Trail Corridor. The old wagon road and rocky hill environs are part of the Santa Susana Pass State Historic Park, for public exploration.http://www.lamountains.com/parks.asp?parkid=123 LAMountains.com – Santa Susana Pass State Historic Park. access date: 4/4/2010. The

Southern Pacific Railroad The Southern Pacific (or Espee from the railroad initials) was an American Railroad classes#Class I, Class I Rail transport, railroad network that existed from 1865 to 1996 and operated largely in the Western United States. The system was oper ...

began construction of three railroad tunnels through the pass in 1898 and opened the route in 1904. The railroad built the Santa Susana Depot in

Rancho Simi Rancho Simi, also known as Rancho San José de Nuestra Señora de Altagracia y Simí, was a Spanish land grant in what is now eastern Ventura and western Los Angeles counties granted in 1795 to Santiago Pico, founder of the Pico family of Cal ...

on Los Angeles Avenue at Tapo Street in 1903.

References

External links

California State Parks Dept. – Santa Susana Pass State Historic Park

LAMountains.com – Santa Susana Pass State Historic Park

LAMountains.com – Sage Ranch Park

LAMountains.com – Corriganville Park

LAMountains.com – Rocky Peak Park

{{California history Santa Susana Mountains Simi Hills California Historical Landmarks California State Historic Parks Geography of Simi Valley, California Historic trails and roads in California History of Simi Valley, California History of the San Fernando Valley Landforms of Los Angeles County, California Landforms of Ventura County, California Landmarks in California Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monuments Mountain passes of California Native American trails in the United States Parks in Los Angeles San Fernando Valley Trails and roads in the American Old West Native American history of California