|
The Land
Beneath the Lake
|
|
Click HERE
to see an article about the lake as it is today.
Click on any
of the thumbnails below to see a larger image...
|
 |
These ancient fossilized whale bones were discovered prior to the
construction of
the dam.
|
 |
 |
There were
three Chumash native villages located on the banks of Coyote Creek; Onkot,
Kohsho, and Koyo. Populations probably did not
exceed 30 persons each.
|
 |
 |
Mary
Wentworth, left, and Richard Robinson
Robinson
was Captain of his own Clipper ship. He wed Mary in 1940, and she
accompanied him on thirty of his voyages. Robinson retired in
1872, and began to farm the Upper Ojai . In 1875 he joined with
Judge Eugene Fawcett Sr. and H.C. Dean to purchase the land previously
owned by Don Jose Arnaz in the Santa Ana Valley.
|
 |
The Santa Ana
School.
After the land was subdivided in 1873, the population of the
Valley increased. The school stood near the current park entrance when
it was built in 1878.
In 1920,
voters approved a $6,000 bond issue to construct a new schoolhouse,
pictured here. It stood at the intersection of Dunshee and Santa Ana
Roads, amid the northern portion of today's lake. As the waters
rose on June 6, 1957, a farewell gathering was attended by some 400
locals.
|
 |
In September,
1887 Robert Ayres purchased the land that later became Rancho
Casitas. He retired from ranching in 1894, when he gave it to his
children, who held the land until 1905.
|
 |
Walter Henry
Hoffman, Jr.
Mr. Hoffman was born in New Orleans in 1887. He came to
California in 1909. He acquired his first thoroughbred horses in
1927.
Edith May
Hobson Hoffman
Born August 17, 1890, in Ventura, California.
She married Walter on October 2, 1914. Their first child,
Katherine Louise arrived in 1919, and three years later, a son, Walter
William.
|
 |
An aerial
view of the 9,500-acre Rancho Casitas.
|
 |
 |
Wallace Neff
Selected by the Hoffmans to design their grand house,
which stood less than a mile from the present dam. It was
completed in 1923. It was L-shaped, two stories, with a tower where the
two wings intersected.
|
 |
 |
The house was
abandoned in 1956. It was used for a time as headquarters for
construction crews, until it was burned as the valley flooded. The
Rancho also had an active airstrip.
|
 |
 |
Rancho
Casitas' reputation for purebred horses began with the purchase of
Percheron breeding stock from the Anita Baldwin Rand in Ojai. With
the mechanization of farming, ranches no longer needed these
workhorses. Breeding lines changed to polo ponies, and later, in
1926, to racehorses.
|
 |
This
aerial photo of the man-made lake was taken by the U.S. Forest Service. |
