Neenach, California

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Neenach (Template:IPAc-en Template:Respell) is an agricultural settlement in northwestern Los Angeles County, California, United States, with a population of about 800.<ref name=Outback> The U.S. Census does not break out a separate figure for Neenach. The county registrar said in 1991 that the voting district for Neenach, which included the nearby Three Points area and Holiday Valley, had 378 voters.Template:Cite news The 800 figure is from the Scott Gold story, below.</ref> It is facing a massive change with the proposed construction of a 23,000-home planned community to its north called Centennial.<ref name=Gold>Template:Cite news</ref>

File:Map of Los Angeles County - October 1893.jpg

Neenach on a map of Los Angeles County published October 1893 for the World's Columbian Exposition

Geography and climateEdit

Neenach is Template:Convert northwest of Lancaster<ref>Google page showing distance between Neenach and Lancaster</ref> in the Antelope Valley portion of Southern California. It is Template:Convert southeast of Gorman and north of the Sierra Pelona Mountains,<ref>Google page showing distance between Neenach and Gorman</ref> and Template:Convert from the county seat in Downtown Los Angeles.<ref>Google page showing distance between Neenach and downtown Los Angeles</ref> This region experiences hot and dry summers.<ref>Climate Summary for Neenach, California</ref>

HistoryEdit

Early namesEdit

The original name for present day Neenach is puyutsiwamǝŋ. This is in the Kitanemuk language. The Spanish referred to it as Ojo de la Vaca.<ref name=Latta/>

Cow Springs and French John's StationEdit

File:Distances from San Francisco to St Louis from Station to Station.jpg

Cow Springs and other overland stage stops in the Far West in 1860

A 19th century name for the area was Cow Springs (Template:Coord), about a mile southwest of today's Neenach School.<ref name="Kane3">Bonnie Ketterl Kane, A View From the Ridge Route, Volume III, The Ranchos, Frazier Park: Bonnie's Books, 2005 Template:ISBN</ref> El Camino Viejo, the Old Road to Los Angeles, passed from Laguna Chico Lopez north via Willow Springs Canyon, then west to the water at Aquaje Lodoso, then to Cow Springs and on to Tejon Pass.<ref name="Latta">Frank F. Latta, "EL CAMINO VIEJO a LOS ANGELES" - The Oldest Road of the San Joaquin Valley; Bear State Books, Exeter, 2006; p.21. Reprint of the 1936 work by Frank F. Latta.</ref> Later a shorter route was followed by the Stockton - Los Angeles Road and the Butterfield Overland Mail between Elizabeth Lake and Gorman. Instead of going north-south, travelers went east-west via the San Andreas Rift and Oakgrove Canyon, and north-south via Pine Canyon, Antelope Valley and Cow Springs.<ref>Map of Passes in the Sierra Nevada from Walker's Pass to the Coast Range: from Explorations and Surveys made under the direction of the Hon. Jefferson Davis, Secretary of War, by Lieut. R.S. Williamson Topl. Engr. assisted by Lieut. J.G. Parke Topl. Engr. and Mr. Isaac Williams Smith, Civ. Engr. 1853. Explorations and Surveys for a Rail Road Route from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean. War Department. Routes in California to connect with the routes near the 32nd and 35th parallels. Engraved by Selmar Siebert.</ref> French Johns Station, Template:Convert east of Gorman<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> near Cow Springs, provided a way station for the stage line, teamsters and other travelers.

In 1888, Cow Springs was described as "a pleasant camping-place with willow trees, casting an inviting shade to the weary traveler" with a "pure, cold, limpid stream which came bubbling up from its earthen reservoir and went gaily dancing down to the thirsty soil that encompassed it about".<ref>"The Race for Wealth: Reported Gold Discoveries in the Liebre," Los Angeles Daily Herald, June 27, 1888, Page 1</ref>

EstablishmentEdit

Neenach itself was founded in the 1870s by Danish settlers from Neenah, Wisconsin. In 1888, a post office was established, with John A. Coovert as the first postmaster.<ref name=Kane>Bonnie Ketterl Kane, A Brief Overview of the History of Neenach. Template:Webarchive Although Kane states that the post office was originally known as Neenah and it became known later as Neenach, she cites no source. The first mention of Neenach in the Los Angeles Times was on September 4, 1890, reporting a marriage license issued to Uriah W. Pratt, 32, and Estelle Hereford, 24, both "of Neenach." There were no references in the Times data base under any other spelling.</ref> In September 1905 Christian Clausen was named postmaster.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

James Anderson filed a homestead claim for 160 acres (647,000 m²) at present-day State Route 138 and 300th Street West in 1887. He had a county contract to maintain and improve roads in the Antelope Valley as far as Three Points.<ref name=Kane/>

Construction of the Los Angeles Aqueduct between 1905 and 1913, which brought water from the distant Owens Valley to the San Fernando Valley, was important to the area.

On July 13, 1917, Chief Water Engineer William Mulholland of the city of Los Angeles, the builder of the aqueduct, received word that the line had been broken. He went to Neenach and found a Template:Convert. He ordered additional surveillance, which saw the arrest of one man, an employee of the rival Los Angeles Gas and Electric Company. The suspect was later released.<ref>Catherine Mullholland, William Mulholland and the Rise of Los Angeles, University of California Press, 2002, p. 262. Template:ISBN</ref>

James Anderson became a line rider or patrolman on the aqueduct: He had to shut down the tunnel periodically to check its condition. He also checked the surface to verify that none of the aqueduct's opponents had damaged it. Harry Womersley, from England by way of Illinois, was another resident who worked on the aqueduct—the Template:Convert from Fairmont to Neenach.<ref name=Kane/>

Gold was discovered in the hills south of the community in the early 1930s. The "Oh Suzanna" mine produced some $7 million over the few years of its operation.<ref name=Kane/> Another account says that total gold production from the Neenach mining district was $200,000.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

In the 1970s, Neenach was lively, one resident told a reporter. There were community-wide potluck dinners and almost 80 members in the local 4-H Club. Since then, he said, many of the kids moved away as soon as they were able.<ref name=Gold/>

Proposed developmentEdit

…the truly rural outposts of Los Angeles County—the nation's top agricultural county not so long ago—are withering away. And this one happens to abut the proposed site of the largest planned community in county history.{{#if:|{{#if:|}}
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A portion of nearby Tejon Ranch called Centennial is proposed to be a 23,000-home master-planned community adjacent to Neenach. Civic squares, parks, shops, three fire stations, and other services are proposed. Children would be encouraged to walk to one of the eight elementary schools planned. The promoters have pledged to create 30,000 local jobs. On average, a new house would be erected every eight hours, seven days a week, for 20 years.<ref name=Gold/>

The Tucson, Arizona,-based Center for Biological Diversity opposes the project—claiming that Centennial would be built on rare ecosystems, including the largest native grassland left in California.<ref name=Gold/>

ServicesEdit

LibraryEdit

The Los Angeles County Library's Antelope Valley bookmobile is at the Neenach market on Saturdays from 11 to noon.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

SchoolsEdit

The school closed a few years back when they ran out of kids, and its rose-painted walls are still the brightest thing on the prairie.{{#if:|{{#if:|}}
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File:Neenach-California-School.jpg

Neenach Elementary School, shown in 2008, had no students but was kept in good condition.

The present Neenach School building was opened in 1993 to replace an older building that had stood for decades on a neighboring lot.<ref name=Kane/><ref>"Project OKd to Make Curves Safer," Los Angeles Times, February 26, 1993, image 14</ref> The school was closed in 2001 because of dwindling population and high heating costs; lack of a natural-gas source meant the school was all-electric. Sixty-six pupils were enrolled the previous year.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Neenach is part of the Westside Union School District of West Lancaster, which also operates Del Sur, Joe Walker, Hill View, Cottonwood, Rancho Vista, Sundown, Valley View, Leona Valley, and Quartz Hill schools, through the eighth grade. [1]

The community is within the Antelope Valley Union High School District and the Antelope Valley Community College District.

Natural phenomenaEdit

Volcanic formationsEdit

The Neenach Volcanic Formations, about 23.5 million years old, are a series of igneous intrusions next to Old Post Road paralleling Interstate 5 near Gorman, California.<ref>Peter C. Gray, "Fault," The Signal, February 6, 2011, image 12</ref> Plate movement along the San Andreas Fault split the formations and moved half of them about two hundred miles north into what is now Pinnacles National Park.<ref>Robin Soslow, Washington Post, syndicated in "Your Spirit Can Soar Like Condors," Sunday News, Lancaster, Pennsylvania, March 2, 2014, image 61</ref>

MeteoriteEdit

File:NeenachMeteorite.JPG

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The Neenach Meteorite is a 30-pound mass of stony, ordinary chondrite discovered in April 1948 by Elden Snyder of Neenach when he unearthed it with his plow, in the process breaking it into four pieces. In 1952 it was brought to the attention of Robert Wallace Webb of the University of California, Santa Barbara. Later it was donated to the collection of the Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics at the University of California, Los Angeles.Template:Citation needed