A Vista of History : Firm Offers Archeological Site--If Development Is OKd

Archeologist Dave Whitley stands on a scrub-covered, wind-swept hill, a site indistinguishable to the naked eye from dozens of other undeveloped hilltops in the wilds of Santa Clarita.

But for Whitley, this hilltop is a special place. In 1804, Spanish missionaries established an outpost here that marked what is believed to have been the first white settlement in northern Los Angeles County. Beneath the thick mat of overgrown brown grasses and scrubs, Whitely said, are remains of buildings and artifacts that could reveal much about how those settlers lived.

“It’s the most significant historical site that I’ve ever run into in northern Los Angeles County,” said Whitley, who was formerly chief archeologist at UCLA.

He believes this site north of Valencia--called the Asistencia San Francisco Xavier by the Spanish--should be preserved.

And it may well be.

The property’s owner, giant developer Newhall Land & Farming Co., has offered to give eight acres, including the site, to the national Archeological Conservancy.

But the gift comes with an asterisk.

The donation agreement states that the land will be turned over to the conservancy if and when Newhall Ranch, a controversial 25,000-home development covering 19 square miles, gets all the construction permits it needs from federal, county and local authorities.

Opponents of the project call that cultural blackmail.

“They are not saying, ‘We are going to donate this land no matter what,’ ” said Lynne Plambeck, vice president of the Santa Clarita Organization for Planning the Environment. “They are saying, ‘We will donate if the project is approved.’ ”

But experts in the field say that the practice of offering a community a donation of an archeological or historic site as an incentive for project approval is not unusual.

A Newhall company official said it is simply good community relations.

“When you are developing a project, you look for public benefits,” said Gloria Glenn, senior vice president of the Newhall Ranch Co., the division overseeing the development.

“People want to know you are being responsible with your development plans.”

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But what if the development does not go through?

“I don’t even want to envision that,” Glenn said.

The Archeological Conservancy, headquartered in Albuquerque, has received numerous site donations from developers in recent years. It’s not unusual, said conservancy President Mark Michel, for those developers to use archeological sites as leverage in their quest for community support.

Michel said that although developers who have entered into agreements with the conservancy did not always get their entire plans approved, none has reneged on a site donation.

He said he believes Newhall will make good on the gift of the Asistencia site, whatever the outcome of the approvals process. “I think they are committed to seeing [the site] preserved, regardless,” he said.

Although current Newhall plans call for houses to be built within clear view of the site, Michel said, encroaching civilization is sometimes a good thing for an archeologically sensitive area.

“We found that people who live near a site take a real interest in it and help protect it,” Michel said. “It’s the sites in remote, unpopulated areas that are much more likely to be vandalized.”

The Asistencia site is extremely rare, Michel said.

“This is the only mission I know of in California where you have the original site pretty much intact,” he said. “From the archeological point of view, it’s loaded with material that will tell us a tremendous amount about the role of the Catholic Church with native people.”

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The site was considered by the famed Portola expedition in 1769 as a possible location for a Catholic mission, Whitley said, probably because of its elevated vantage point and cooling winds. The mission was established instead in San Fernando and the Santa Clarita site became an outpost for missionaries attempting to convert Native Americans in the area.

When missions were secularized by the Mexican government in the 1830s, the Asistencia became the headquarters for a rancho established in the area. In 1842, Jose Lopez was living there when he made the first documented California gold discovery in a nearby field.

The buildings were eventually abandoned and, according to Glenn, the ruins were torn down in the 1930s to discourage amateur diggers who believed an old rumor that vast quantities of gold were buried at mission sites.

Currently, nothing can be readily seen of the settlement except for a few stones aligned in a row that Whitley identified as part of a foundation.

“I hate to say it, but after a fire when all the vegetation is cleared is the best time to find things,” Whitley said during a tour that he and Glenn gave of the site (asking that its exact location not be disclosed, in an effort to discourage looters).

“One time out here,” Glenn said, “we found a piece of blue and white china.”

“From the point of view of Southern California history,” Whitely said, “this site is as good as it gets.”