Newhall Land and Farming Company records, 1850-2002, bulk 1883-1972

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Summary

Creators:
Newhall Land and Farming Company
Abstract:
The collection consists mainly of the business and accounting records of the Newhall Land and Farming Company, the White Investment Company, and numerous subsidiaries for the period 1883-1970s.
Extent:
273 volumes and folders and 5 boxes
Language:
The records are in English .

Background

Scope and content:

The collection consists mainly of the business and accounting records of the Newhall Land and Farming Company, the White Investment Company, and numerous subsidiaries for the period 1883-1970s. A detailed list of the companies represented is located below. In addition to fairly complete runs of board minutes as well as land papers and related material, there are accounting volumes, various reports, press clippings, and some historical materials. Included are the itemized claims by the Newhall Land and Farming Company to the City of Los Angeles in 1928 for its losses resulting from the St. Francis Dam disaster. Also included are legal and adminstrative papers for the estates of some members of the Newhall family.

The organization and numbering system of the corporate material has been retained, in slightly modified form, as it existed in the basement vault of the main headquarters of the Newhall Land and Farming Company in Valencia, CA. That structure followed in detail in the container list below. Additional items not included in the vault inventory have been added in archival boxes and folders at the end of the collection. The majority of the collection consists of volumes with NLF call numbers.

Biographical / historical:

The Newhall Land and Farming Company was formed in 1883 as one of three companies created out of the estate of Henry Mayo Newhall by his heirs, and would remain a family enterprise until the late twentieth century. When initially set up, it comprised several major ranches in California scattered between Los Angeles and Monterey counties, with a total acreage of 143,000. Its first years were often difficult as it suffered the effects of both external factors such as the Panic of 1893 and some of the internal problems often characteristic of second generation businesses.

Early in the new century, the company moved in a significant way into citrus and farming, becoming relatively prosperous by the late 1920s. In early 1928, however, the St. Francis Dam disaster led to fundamental changes in the course of the company. The wall of water released by the collapsed dam ruined much of its most productive land along the Santa Clara River, while the Great Depression of the following year compounded the problems. In reaction to the dire situation, prominent San Francisco businessman Atholl McBean, husband of one of the Newhall heirs, was brought in to run the company in 1930. Three months later, in November of that year, the City of Los Angeles finally paid damages to Newhall Land and Farming for the destruction wrought by the failure of St. Francis Dam. This saved the company from liquidation and enabled Mr. McBean to institute changes in policy that brought a rapid revival of the company’s fortunes. For the first time, the company plowed money back into the company in the form of intensive cultivation through irrigation projects and the reclamation of saline lands in the San Joaquin Valley, bringing several thousand new acres under cultivation. Rather than distributing any profits from the sale of land to the heirs, the company now used the money to purchase new land both in California and out of state to replace other land as it was sold.

Meanwhile, in the 1940s McBean began studying the prospects for the subdivision of much of the company’s holdings in the Santa Clarita Valley. By 1950, a master plan existed covering some 15 square miles of the San Francisco Ranch. This was followed in 1953 by a key study of land development by the Stanford Research Institute recommending a first phase of industrial development. New plans by the State of California to build a freeway through the center of the ranch property enhanced prospects for eventual residential development. While ranching remained the heart of Newhall Land and Farming’s operations in the 1950s, with 150,000 acres of ranch land in California, 40,000 acres of it under irrigation, it was already clear that subdivision would be the growth area for the future. A major strike of natural gas on company property in 1959, added to existing lucrative oil revenues, would provide much of the working capital for that development.

The completion of the freeway in 1966 was the signal for the first residential subdivision in Newhall Land’s planned community of Valencia, built by its affiliated California Land Company in collaboration with developer Donald Bren. Opened for sale in 1967, its success was immediate. By 1970, Newhall Land and Farming had gone public and was listed on the New York Stock Exchange. Similar business and tax considerations led to the creation of numerous subsidiaries. At the same time, Newhall Land became involved as a partner in the development of the Magic Mountain theme park. Unfortunately, it was initially underfunded and opened in 1971 just as the housing market was entering a major slump. The earthquake in early 1971 made matters worse, doing serious damage to the freeway linking Valencia to greater Los Angeles. The closely affiliated White Investment Company, owned by the Newhall family and parent of California Land Company, was dissolved, and California Land absorbed by Newhall Land and Farming, which managed to weather the downturn. By the mid-1970s, there was a resurgence of the housing market and with it of the fortunes of Newhall Land that only ended at the end of the decade with a new economic recession and a dizzying rise in mortgage rates.

Acquisition information:
The collection was donated to the Huntington Library by the Newhall Land and Farming Company on Jan. 26, 2004, and transferred to the Library on Sep. 17 of the same year.
Rules or conventions:
Finding Aid prepared using Describing Archives: A Content Standard

Access and use

Location of this collection:
1151 Oxford Road
San Marino, CA 91108, US
Contact:
(626) 405-2191
reference@huntington.org
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