This is a scene that was commonplace back in
1878 when the stage coach came over the San Marcos Pass to the valley.
The Santa Ynez Valley Historical Museum and Parks-Janeway Carriage House will host to a symposium April 2 through 5 called “A Bit of the West
That Was.”
Residents and visitors alike will have the
opportunity to relive the wild and wooly days when everyone traveled by
stagecoach or horseback.
The museum has brought in the original
stagecoach that traveled between Santa Barbara and Mattei’s Tavern, where it
would have stopped more than 100 years ago. Tom Peterson, vice president of the
museum, says the coach was an M.P. Henderson mud wagon, which is a stagecoach
with roll-down curtains on the sides instead of doors.
The symposium will center on the stagecoach
and the western society built around it. Stagecoach historians and experts on
carriage construction, preservation and restoration will speak, and enthusiasts
will take part in question-and-answer sessions. The events are geared to
historians and the museum’s personnel, but carriage and stagecoach fans are
welcome, as well.
Speakers include Merri Ferrell, a researcher,
scholar and consultant; Doug Hansen, a South Dakota specialist in restoration
of heavy wagons; Brian Howard, a conservator of western collections; Donna Rea
Jones, curator with the California State Parks; Patrick Morgan, owner of Morgan
Carriage Works in Ojai; Michael Sanborn, director of the Phineas Banning
residence in Wilmington, Calif; Kenneth Wheeler, a carriage historian; and Jim
Bodoh, a collector of antique firearms.
In addition to the scholarly aspects of the
weekend, attendees can participate in a western dance, with music by Last Call,
and dinner catered by Epicurean Cowboy. The April 4 dance and dinner at the
museum cost $50 per person. Evening receptions, demonstrations and stagecoach
rides are also planned.
Thirty-minute stagecoach rides, open to the
public for $25 for adults and $20 for 10- to 15-year-olds, will take place from
10 a.m. to 1 p.m. April 5 at the Chamberlin Ranch. Lunch will also be
available. Guests are requested to refrain from smoking and to please not bring
their dogs.
Fred Chamberlin will drive the stagecoach.
His great grandfather was part of the Bixby family who owned the stage line.
The company was called Santa Ynez Turnpike and the present-day carriage rides
are designed to demonstrate the mode of travel people in the “old days”
accepted as a matter of course. Dust, noise, rutted roads and occasional bad
weather were all taken in stride.
Back when the stage was running, passengers
from Santa Barbara would start their journey either at the Arlington Hotel or
Potter’s Hotel. The coach would stop at Kinevan’s, at the top of Camino Cielo,
where passengers would pay a toll of 25 cents. Then the driver would change
teams before the stop at Cold Springs Tavern, where passengers could get
refreshments.
Six mules were used to go uphill; it took
just four to go back down, and the entire trip required eight hours to
complete, depending on the weather.
The stage ran from 1861 to 1901, but the
wagon continued to be used for the delivery of mail around the valley and
Lompoc for some years afterwards.
Proceeds from the symposium will go toward a
climate control system for the Parks-Janeway Carriage House, located at 3596
Sagunto St., Santa Ynez.
More information is available by calling the
historical society at (805) 688-7889 or by e-mailing syvm@verizon.net. Visit
www.santaynezmuseum.org.
Reach Margo Kline at mkline@syvjournal.com.