Cuddy Valley | |
|---|---|
 Cuddy Valley | |
  Cuddy Valley | |
| Coordinates: 34°49′27″N119°01′23″W / 34.82417°N 119.02306°W | |
| Location | Kern County, California |
| Range | Transverse Ranges |
| Formed by | San Andreas Fault |
Cuddy Valley is a valley in the San Andreas Rift Zone south of the San Emigdio Mountains west of Tejon Pass, part of the Mountain Communities. It lies at an elevation of 5,282 feet 1610 m). [1]
What is now the Cuddy Valley was a water and grazing place along El Camino Viejo (18th-19th century). The Old Road came over what is now the Tejon Pass from what would become Gorman then turned west up Cuddy Creek to Cuddy Valley its spring. Afterward the road descended to the north, through the San Emigdio Mountains, via San Emigdio Canyon along San Emigdio Creek to the San Joaquin Valley. At the foot of the mountains and at the creek's mouth was the next stop, that became the 1842 Mexican land grant of Rancho San Emidio .
Cuddy Valley, Cuddy Creek and Cuddy Canyon are named for John Fletcher Cuddy, who came to the United States from Ireland during the Great Famine. He joined the United States Army and after being discharged in 1853, followed his former unit, the 1st Dragoon Regiment, to Fort Tejon in 1854 as a civilian teamster. He became the herdsman for the fort and found meadow in a valley some miles west of the fort that was ideal for grazing its stock.
Cuddy eventually built a log cabin west of the fort in the small valley just southwest of modern Lake of the Woods, and laid claim to land in what became known at the time as Cuddy's Valley, (later Little Cuddy Valley), and raised cattle there. John Cuddy married Margaret Gale in 1858 and by 1861 had moved his family into a larger log cabin that still stands, west of the present community of Lake of the Woods.
The Cuddy Ranch acquired much of the surrounding area as Cuddy's children became eligible, homesteading nearby land until their holdings included most of the land, to the southwest in Lockwood Valley, to the west in what is now known as Cuddy Valley, and east to the present Interstate 5. [2] [3]
Frazier Park is an unincorporated community and census-designated place in Kern County, California. It is 5 miles (8 km) west of Lebec, at an elevation of 4,639 feet (1,414 m). It is one of the Mountain Communities of the Tejon Pass. The population was 2,592 in the 2020 census, down from 2,691 in 2010.
Lake of the Woods is an unincorporated area and census-designated place (CDP) in southwestern Kern County, California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 790.
The Tehachapi Mountains are a mountain range in the Transverse Ranges system of California in the Western United States. The range extends for approximately 40 miles (64 km) in southern Kern County and northwestern Los Angeles County and form part of the boundary between the San Joaquin Valley and the Mojave Desert.
The Tejon Pass, previously known as Portezuelo de Cortes, Portezuela de Castac, and Fort Tejon Pass is a mountain pass between the southwest end of the Tehachapi Mountains and northeastern San Emigdio Mountains, linking Southern California north to the Central Valley. Both the pass and the grade north of it to the Central Valley are commonly referred to as "the Grapevine". It has been traversed by major roads such as the El Camino Viejo, the Stockton – Los Angeles Road, the Ridge Route, U.S. Route 99, and now Interstate 5.
Gorman is an unincorporated community in northwestern Los Angeles County. It is located in Peace Valley south of the Tejon Pass, which links Southern California with the San Joaquin Valley and Northern California. Due to this location, the area has served as a historic travel stop dating back to the indigenous peoples of California. Tens of thousands of motorists travel through Gorman daily on the Golden State Freeway since the highway's completion in the mid-20th Century.
The San Emigdio Mountains are a part of the Transverse Ranges in Southern California, extending from Interstate 5 at Lebec and Gorman on the east to Highway 33–166 on the west. They link the Tehachapis and Temblor Range and form the southern wall of the San Joaquin Valley. The range is named after Emygdius, an early Christian martyr.
Elizabeth Lake is a natural sag pond that lies directly on the San Andreas Fault in the northern Sierra Pelona Mountains, in northwestern Los Angeles County, southern California.
The Sierra Pelona, also known as the Sierra Pelona Ridge or the Sierra Pelona Mountains, is a mountain ridge in the Transverse Ranges in Southern California. Located in northwest Los Angeles County, the ridge is bordered on the north by the San Andreas fault and lies within and is surrounded by the Angeles National Forest.
The Butterfield Overland Mail in California was created by the United States Congress on March 3, 1857, and operated until June 30, 1861. Subsequently, other stage lines operated along the Butterfield Overland Mail in route in Alta California until the Southern Pacific Railroad arrived in Yuma, Arizona in 1877.
Cuddy Canyon is a canyon running along the boundary line between Kern County and Ventura County, California. It lies inside the Los Padres National Forest and southern San Emigdio Mountains.
The Stockton–Los Angeles Road, also known as the Millerton Road, Stockton–Mariposa Road, Stockton–Fort Miller Road or the Stockton–Visalia Road, was established about 1853 following the discovery of gold on the Kern River in Old Tulare County. This route between Stockton and Los Angeles followed by the Stockton–Los Angeles Road is described in "Itinerary XXI. From Fort Yuma to Benicia, California", in The Prairie Traveler: A Hand-book for Overland Expeditions by Randolph Barnes Marcy. The Itinerary was derived from the report of Lieutenant R. S. Williamson on his topographical survey party in 1853, that was in search of a railroad route through the interior of California.
El Camino Viejo a Los Ángeles, also known as El Camino Viejo and the Old Los Angeles Trail, was the oldest north-south trail in the interior of Spanish colonial Las Californias (1769–1822) and Mexican Alta California (1822–1848), present day California. It became a well established inland route, and an alternative to the coastal El Camino Real trail used since the 1770s in the period.
Peace Valley is a valley in the northwestern corner of Los Angeles County, California, running northeast−southeast along the San Andreas Fault and a section of Interstate 5 near Tejon Pass. The unincorporated community of Gorman is located within the valley.
Tejon Creek, originally in Spanish Arroyo de Tejon, is a stream in Kern County, California. Its headwaters are located on the western slopes of the Tehachapi Mountains, and it flows northwest into the southern San Joaquin Valley.
The Old Tejon Pass is a mountain pass in the Tehachapi Mountains linking Southern and Central California.
San Emigdio Creek, formerly Arroyo de San Emigdio, is a 33 kilometres (21 mi) northward-flowing stream in western Kern County, central California.
Willow Springs Canyon is a canyon cut by Willow Springs Canyon Wash. Its source is at the head of the canyon in the gap in the Portal Ridge of the Transverse Range, 0.5 miles north of Elizabeth Lake. It is cut into the slope to the northeast into the Antelope Valley, crossing the California Aqueduct. The mouth of the Canyon is 0.25 miles southwest of its confluence with Myrick Canyon Wash which is 300 feet southwest of the intersection of Munz Ranch Road with the Neenach - Fairmont Road in Los Angeles County, California, USA.
Castac Lake, also known as Tejon Lake, is a natural saline endorheic, or sink, lake near Lebec, California. The lake is located in the Tehachapi Mountains just south of the Grapevine section of Interstate 5, and within Tejon Ranch. Normal water elevations are 3,482 feet (1,061 m) above sea level.
Chief Tecuya was an Emigdiano Chumash elder said to be the last living soul to have known the precise whereabouts of an exposed gold ledge that spawned the legend of the Lost Padre Mine.
Castac Valley is a valley located within the Transverse Ranges in southern Kern County, California. The unincorporated community of Lebec is located within the western portion of the valley.
