Mold Testing in Santa Susana, CA

The hills of and immediate foots of the Santa Susana Mountains have been inhabited for thousands of years, proven by Chumash artifacts found by the Santa Susana Depot and Chumash pictographs dating to 500 AD in the Burro Flats Painted Cave. The area has likely been populated by Native-American peoples for as much as 8,000 years-12,000 years ago The Burro Flats Painted Cave, now situated on the protected private Santa Susana Field Laboratory property, was the setting for a winter solstice ritual for the Ventureño Chumash people. The cave, which is on the back wall of a sandstone shelter about 16 ft long and 4 ft high, was discovered at the turn of the 20th century The Chumash of Santa Susana were unlike other settlements in the Simi Valley not only located near other Ventureño Chumash settlements, but the Chumash here traded with the Tataviam people who also settled in the Santa Susana Mountains, as well as the Gabrielino people who inhabited the opposite side of the Santa Susana Pass.

In 1887, the Simi Valley Land and Water Company first surveyed the area to sell parcels as ranches. With the Santa Susana Depot establishment by the Southern Pacific Company in 1903 as its cornerstone, the town of Santa Susana a few miles east of Simi Valley in the Simi Valley was founded. Before this train station, all residents of the Simi Valley had to travel to San Fernando for the closest railroad station. The first businesses surrounding the new train station was also vital for the town’s establishment, and the discovery of oil on El Rancho Tapo in 1910 brought a population boom to the little town. A general merchandise store on the opposite side of Los Angeles Avenue from the railroad station was the first store established in town, established by Horace Crinklaw and his wife in 1909. In 1914, the town was home to eight buildings: Four owned by the Crinklaw family, a schoolhouse, the Santa Susana Depot, the Southern Pacific Warehouse and a blacksmith shop. Oil production was started by the Scarab Oil Company in 1910 and opened with a production of 300 barrels of oil per day. The little town soon became well known as a filming location for Western movies with its rural and rugged surroundings with plentiful sand rock formations; Western films were filmed here as early as in 1920 on the main street of Santa Susana. By 1918, there were 101 registered voters in Santa Susana.

In 1929, the town was used as a set in the movie Welcome Danger The Santa Susana Airport started as a dirt landing strip in a tomato field in the late 1930s, and later became a paved landing site for hundreds of airplanes in the 1970s. It was officially designed by the FAA in 1944. During all of the 1930s and 1940s, the Corriganville Movie Ranch functioned as a Western movie set for hundreds of Western films and TV series, and later an amusement park for visitors to explore the Western film sets. Films shot here include for instance Jungle Jim, the Jungle Boy TV-series, Lawman, Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, Adventures of Robin Hood, Adventures of Superman, Fort Apache, Rin-Tin-Tin TV-show, and hundreds of others. The ranch became a tourist attraction in 1949 and drew thousands from across America and was rated among the “10 most interesting places in America”. The first larger housing developments started in 1958.