Beale's Cut Stagecoach Pass

The San Fernando Mountain had one weak point and men dug at it for decades. By 1863 the notch was ninety feet deep and twenty wide, cut by crews largely made up of Chinese workers, and whoever held the franchise collected a toll from everything that passed. The Newhall Tunnel ended its working life in 1910, and Hollywood took it over — Griffith shot here, Ford shot here repeatedly, and Tom Mix supposedly jumped it in 1923. The Northridge earthquake collapsed most of it.

What the plaque says

[This site was designated California Historical Landmark No. 1006 on May 11, 1992. There are three rock and concrete bases which had displayed four different markers. The markers are now missing. The following marker was never placed:] California Office of Historic Preservation Statement of Significance: Beale's Cut is the only physical and cultural feature of its kind in the entire Los Angeles Basin. At the time of its construction in 1862, the actual creation and maintenance of the Cut was considered a significant technological and physical feat consisting of breaching the former impassable geographic barrier of the San Gabriel and Santa Susana Mountain ranges. General Edward F. Beale is attributed with the construction of a toll road across the mountains. Beale's Cut was also used as a favorite film-making location by pioneer film maker, David Wark Griffith, and others.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• The Cascades — 1.5 mi
  The concrete chute where the Los Angeles Aqueduct arrives, and where forty thousand people watched the Owens Valley come south in 1913.
• Pioneer Oil Refinery — 2.0 mi
  The first commercially successful refinery in the West, built in 1876 to take the crude coming down the pipeline from Pico Canyon.
• Oak of the Golden Dream — 3.2 mi
  Gold was found in California here in 1842, six years before Sutter's Mill, and the oak it was found under is still standing.
• Mission San Fernando Rey de España — 5.4 mi
  The seventeenth Alta California mission, founded at the Tataviam village of Achoicominga, with the largest adobe building in the state standing beside it.

More markers nearby

• Lyons Station Stagecoach Stop — 1.4 mi
• The Cascades — 1.5 mi
• Pioneer Oil Refinery — 2.0 mi
• Oak of the Golden Dream — 3.2 mi