This is the town of Buckhorn, about 40 miles northwest of Los Angeles. No, I'd never heard of it either until I had stared at a map for a while to figure out what I'd taken a picture of on takeoff out of LAX headed to Rome. It's not actually a city, merely a "populated place name" according to Wikipedia:
Located in the Santa Clara River Valley, this was an early stagecoach stop and a regular eating place known for being midway between Los Angeles and Santa Barbara. It was run by the Warring family who came to the county in 1869 and owned the nearby Buckhorn Ranch. Buckhorn was also a station on the initial route of the coast rail line that arrived in the valley in 1887.
Sadly, after the 1904 opening of the Santa Susana Tunnel, which I've also never heard of, traffic moved elsewhere and Buckhorn withered. Apparently no one even knows its population these days.
Please don't confuse this Buckhorn with California's other Buckhorn, located in Amador County east of Sacramento.
'No, I don't come from a small town, I come from a populated place name. Really, it's that small.'
'Out on the highway, so small it's a glottal stop. Choke and you miss it.'
And don’t forget about Buckhorn, South Dakota, well documented as an inter-dimensional portal in the Twin Peaks TV show. The stomping grounds for evil doppelgangers and deadly demons, Buckhorn, SD, has it all!
According to the wiki page: https://twinpeaks.fandom.com/wiki/Buckhorn
Isn’t this the first thing that everyone else thought of when they saw a headline about Buckhorn?
(blush) I thought about the saloon in the Pearl Brewery tour...
And further north and west, on Highway 166, the Buckhorn Cafe in the Cuyama Valley. Used to have Buffalo burgers, but I don't believe they do any longer. Plenty of high grade beef around there.
Don't forget the Buckhorn Saloon in San Antonio.
You beat me to it! Thanks. I hadn't been there in decades, and wondered if I had imagined it, but didn't stop to google.
it took me a minute to find this, but I see it's on the 126, which an absolute delight to drive on, especially in late Spring.
Especially if you have time to get off at Santa Paula and take CA Hwy 150 to Ojai.
I don’t know anything about Buckthorn, but mentioning Santa Susana brought this to mind:
“Santa Susana also housed 10 nuclear reactors, plutonium and uranium fuel fabrication facilities, numerous nuclear “critical facilities,” and a “hot lab,” wherein highly irradiated nuclear fuel from around the nation was cut apart. Poor environmental and safety practices resulted in radioactive fires at the hot lab and at least four of the reactors suffered significant accidents, including the 1959 partial nuclear meltdown. None of the reactors had a containment structure like modern reactors do to prevent radiological releases into the environment. And, in fact, radioactive materials were intentionally vented into the atmosphere to prevent the reactor from exploding, releasing nuclear radiation into the skies above Los Angeles. At the time, the Atomic Energy Commission kept the meltdown hidden from the public. Only in 1979, 20 years after the radioactive release, did watchdog group Committee to Bridge the Gap discover the secret hidden in archives.”
https://www.nrdc.org/bio/caroline-reiser/questions-and-answers-about-santa-susana-field-lab#:~:text=Poor%20environmental%20and%20safety%20practices,the%201959%20partial%20nuclear%20meltdown.
Holy cow! I was unaware of this. It makes Robert Oppenheimer's desire that all nuclear information be available to everyone make even more sense.
The military-driven secrecy structure built up during WWII and its aftermath have not been a good thing for democracy in the US. That said, I still insist that the Defendant be fully prosecuted for hoarding several humdred national security, classified dox at his various retirement resort-homes.
Nice picture Mr. Drum. Looks like a filter, but I think those aren't your style?
I’d have said it was a picture of Piru.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piru,_California
Many old time train scenes are filmed on the Fillmore and Western Railroad that passes through Buckhorn and Piru. It’s the only operating old-fashioned train in the 30 mile zone.
https://fotospot.com/attractions/california/fillmore-and-western-railway-co
"The Buckhorn" is also a rise on the main road up the Allegheny Front west of Altoona, PA, and home to a haunted hostelry. It probably doesn't rate "populated place name" status but people here know where you mean if you mention it. There was also a little restaurant up there that locals knew about but which sadly has closed. It was still a going concern when I bought my house from the family that turned out to own it.
Opening shot of Black Rock.
https://youtu.be/qKO7D7lHxhY
Don't forget the Buckhorn Grade, or summit, on Highway 299 between Redding and Weaverville. That's California's other other Buckhorn. Around here it's often just called the 'Horn.
So the reason you don't know about the Santa Susana tunnel is because it isn't a road tunnel. It's a railroad tunnel. To this day, it carries Union Pacific freight trains and Amtrak Pacific Surfliners and Coast Starlights over Santa Susana Pass, the boundary between the Simi and San Fernando Valleys. You drive north of it over highway 118 when you cross between the two valleys.
I assume its importance to Buckhorn and other communities in that area is that once the tunnel was built, there was a direct rail connection between Los Angeles and Santa Barbara and you didn't have to stop your coach at Buckhorn or any of the neighboring communities anymore.