6 minute read
OC History
BLACK STAR CANYON by Chris Jepsen
PHOTO COURTESY OF OC ARCHIVES
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Black Star Canyon, looking north toward Hidden Ranch, circa 1980s
PHOTO COURTESY OF OC ARCHIVES
Hidden Ranch headquarters, 1966 (Photo courtesy Santa Ana Public Library)
Between grassy hills and rocky cliffs, in an obscure corner of the sycamore and oak-dotted Santa Ana Mountains lies a place variously called Escondido (Hidden), El Cañon de los Indios (Indian Canyon) and Black Star Canyon. For an area so off-thebeaten-path it’s home to a great deal of local history and lore.
Its story begins with an ancient native village site (California Historical Landmark #217) far back into the canyon and up on a hill, just over six miles from the junction of Silverado Canyon and Santiago Canyon Roads. The Tongva or Acjachemen people began living there at least a thousand years ago returning to make camp each Fall during the acorn harvest. The area’s abundant acorns explain the scores of bedrock mortars – low tech food processors often used to make acorn meal – throughout the site. A spring at the foot of the hill and the fact that bears did not favor this canyon also made this a prime spot to set up camp. In places, campfire sites with dark, greasy soil, can still be identified.
By the early 1860s, wild cattle roamed the canyon which local vaqueros shot in order to preserve the grass for more valuable horse herds. Up through the 1880s, Black Star Canyon changed ownership multiple times, with one owner, Juan Cañedo, naming his ranch near the village site Rancho Escondido, or “Hidden Ranch.” Historian Don Meadows wrote that “over the years [Hidden Ranch] has been a cattle ranch, a sheep range, a chicken farm, a Shetland Pony paddock, an apiary and a mountain home.”
A key piece of Orange County lore supposedly took place in Black Star Canyon in 1831, when it’s said a group of trappers led by pioneer William Wolfskill tracked a group of Paiute horse thieves to the Hidden Ranch area. The thieves were caught in the middle of eating some of the horses they’d stolen. Wolfskill and his group ambushed and killed most of thieves, returned the horses to their owners, and thereby ingratiated themselves to the local Spanish and Mexican population. It was apparently at this point that the canyon took on a new name: Cañon de los Indios (Canyon of the Indians.) But the truth of this tale is debated. J. E. Pleasants heard it from Wolfskill and then passed it on (at the age of 91) to historian and Santa Ana Register editor Terry Stephenson almost a century after the event took place. Although all three men were excellent sources, there are no other contemporary accounts, artifacts, or other evidence to further support the tale. There’s nothing to say the story is untrue, but it must – for now --- still be considered a folktale.
In the early 1870s, Pleasants’ brother-in-law, Francisco de Paula Pablo Carpenter built an adobe and stone home on his 160-acre homestead in the canyon. The Carpenters continued to live there until at least 1893. From 1904 until at least 1936, the adobe was owned by and resided in by Robert L. “Bob” Shaw, the well-known local fire warden. As recently as 2005, ruins of the adobe could be seen near the junction of Black Star Canyon and Spring Canyon, but have since been bulldozed.
Interest in mining coal in the canyon began as early as the mid-1850s but didn’t get off to a decent start until 1877, when Dr. August Witte of Anaheim bought 168 acres from James Irvine
and started the Black Star Mining Co. Witte had come to the canyon the year before to raise bees, but noticed the naturally occurring coal his neighbors, the Carpenters, were using to heat their home. Historian Jim Sleeper writes that Witte’s Black Star Coal Mine “was located three-quarters of a mile north of the east side of what is now Santiago Reservoir (Irvine Lake). Shortly, two veins were uncovered 'showing faces of 32 and 54 inches, respectively.' It was bituminous coal, hard and brittle. A number of clapboard structures arose on the spot, the superintendent’s residence, a boarding house for the men, tramways, coal bunkers, etc.” A handful of additional settlers moved into the area to ride the hoped-for boom.
But the coal didn’t prove to be as plentiful or as pure as originally hoped. The mine went through a series of owners, with the last talk of reopening the mine occurring in 1908. Other coal mines also started in the area, but Black Star was the granddaddy, and gave the canyon its current name. Today, the land on which the mine sits is privately owned and inaccessible to the public.
In 1899, Hidden Ranch became the focus of one of Southern California’s biggest news stories. Ranch owner Henry Hungerford and his brother, Thomas, got into an argument with James M. Gregg over $10 worth of pasture rental fees. The argument led to a shoot-out in which Gregg was fatally wounded. The Hungerford brothers gave themselves up to the Sheriff and went before Orange County Superior Court Judge J. W. Ballard in what proved to be a highly publicized trial.
After a mistrial and with too little additional evidence to hold a meaningful second trial, the case against the brothers was dismissed. Widely seen by the public as a miscarriage of justice, both Ballard and District Attorney R. Y. Williams were thrown out of office in the next election. But the sensational murder case thrust the previously obscure Black Star Canyon and Hidden
PHOTO COURTESY OF OC ARCHIVES
O.C. Historical Commissioners Elizabeth Berkey and Don Dobmeier at Black Star village site, 1976
Ranch into the public imagination of Orange Countians.
Another landmark in the canyon -- high on a mountain, near the confluence of Black Star Canyon Road and Main Divide Truck Trail – is Beek’s Place: the ruins of a stone and plywood hunting lodge built in the 1930s by Newport Beach Harbormaster and secretary of the California State Senate Joseph A. Beek. (The Beeks still own and operate the Balboa Ferry.) Beek’s Place remains a landmark to hikers and mountain bikers.
And finally, Black Star Falls – a once-pristine waterfall now often suffering the effects of its own popularity – is probably the most visited site in the canyon today.
Today, Black Star Canyon is owned partially by private interests, partially by the U.S. Forest Service (as part of the Cleveland National Forest,) and partially by the County of Orange (managed by OC Parks and OC Public Works). The Hidden Ranch and ancient village site are owned by the Wildlands Conservancy as the “Mariposa Reserve.” The public can still visit some of this historic canyon, but only on foot, by mountain bike, or on horseback. Even so, the canyon has become increasingly popular in recent years and sees roughly 100,000 recreational visitors annually.
