The Santa Clarita Valley learned how ill-equipped it was to deal with a major disaster in the wee, dark hours of Oct. 12, 1962, when a southbound Greyhound bus slammed into a grain truck that had just pulled onto the fog-shrouded Ridge Route near Castaic. One female passenger died and 22 others were injured, including a 19-year-old sailor en route to his Navy ship at Long Beach.
Victims were transported to Holy Cross Hospital in Mission Hills and to the little Santa Clarita Hospital[1] at 21704 Soledad Canyon Road in Saugus. The sailor lapsed into a coma and never regained consciousness[2]. He occupied one of Santa Clarita Hospital's 19 beds for more than a year[3]; not until 1964 would Santa Clarita Hospital add 62 beds in a new convalescent wing. The future 43-bed Golden State Memorial Hospital had not yet opened[4] at 24124 Lyons Avenue, and Newhall Community Hospital, which started as a doctor's office in 1926 at Spruce (now Main) and 6th Streets, had just six beds and no ICU.
Eight or more Greyhound passengers treated at Santa Clarita Hospital, several in critical condition, hailed from communities stretching from Sacramento to Mexico. They needed more help than doctors and nurses could provide. They needed clothing and emotional support, and they needed to contact out-of-town family members - who would need help of their own to find their way around our still-remote valley.
Lena Huntsinger, Santa Clarita Hospital's assistant administrator, put out the call, and the community's leading ladies responded.
"The Greyhound bus accident ... pointed up the real need for a hospital service group," Huntsigner said. "In this isolated area there is no place where people can turn for help when they have become stranded because of an accident."
Huntsinger appealed to the Santa Clarita Methodist Church Women's Society of Christian Service to help establish a group of non-nursing volunteers to assist recovering patients. The following month, on Nov. 27, three women - Martha Barton, Jereann Bowman and Gwen Gillespie - drafted a set of bylaws for the new organization, which would be called the Santa Clarita Valley Women's Auxiliary. Its purpose was to "promote interest in person-to-person service within the community" and develop a "hospital service group composed of girls" ages 14-18. There were three classes of membership: Regular, consisting of adult volunteers; Patroness, non-volunteers who according to the bylaws were typically "wives of medical and administrative staffs"; and Junior - the candy stripers.
The volunteers were already helping at Santa Clarita Hospital in December, before the bylaws could even be ratified. That happened at the organizational meeting Jan. 10, 1963, at Hart High School. Lois LoFiego was elected the first president; vice presidents were Sue Bedwell and Ann Cash - the latter succeeding LoFiego as president the following June - while Louise McJohnston, Betty Bullock and Barton rounded out the initial director positions.
Santa Clarita Hospital provided the uniforms for the volunteers: the usual striped overalls for the junior volunteers and peach-colored outfits for the adults, who came be known as the "Pink Ladies" or, affectionately, "Pinkies."
By mid-1963 a dozen Pink Ladies were visiting patients at Santa Clarita Hospital, feeding those who needed assistance, helping them write letters, and bringing them flowers, games and books. Forty-five girls from Hart High (then the SCV's only high school) signed up as candy stripers the first year, under the direction of Mrs. Oleita Hickox, Mrs. John Bodine and Mrs. Auby Lee. The young candy stripers elected their own board in June 1963: Martha Atkins (president), Pat Reyes, Sally Longoria, June Butts and Mary Munoz.
Pink was naturally the shade of the punch, cake and corsages presented to the candy stripers and Pink Ladies at the annual teas, which coincided with National Hospital Week and by 1964 expanded to Golden State Hospital. Golden State primarily handled acute cases while Santa Clarita Hospital was focusing more on elderly care with its new convalescent expansion. In 1965 the Pink Ladies and candy stripers expanded their volunteer activities to a local Well Baby Clinic and Preschool Clinic operated by the Los Angeles County Health Department.
That same year brought the Old Orchard Shopping Center at Lyons Avenue and Orchard Village Road. It was a portent of things to come. The Newhall Land and Farming Co. was planning an entire "new town" to be called Valencia which would quickly double the valley's population and shift its center of gravity to the west. The thousands of new residents would need more places to work, new places to study, and upgraded facilities in which to recover from illness and injury.
Branding was an issue. The name "Santa Clarita" evolved from "Santa Clara," first used in the 1700s[5]. But as the communities of Newhall and Saugus took shape in the late 1800s, the valley came to be known as the "Newhall-Saugus Area." With the birth of Valencia on Aug. 20, 1967, Newhall Land wanted to rename the area "Valencia Valley," but this effort met vehement resistance from local old-timers.
Sidestepping the naming scuffle, Santa Clarita Hospital Administrator Charles S. Dyer announced a name change in November 1969. Henceforth his hospital, now boasting 125 beds and 180 employees, would be called Inter-Valley Community Hospital, “so that we may be more identified with this expanding area, sometimes known as the Santa Clarita Valley, by others as the Valencia Valley, and yet others by Saugus-Newhall.”[6]
Over in Valencia, Newhall Land President Tom Lowe was already talking to one of the state's oldest and largest nonprofit healthcare providers, Lutheran Hospital Society, about a hospital presence in the new town. Newhall Land and LHS recruited leading citizens to help promote and fund a new hospital to be called Henry Mayo Newhall Memorial in recognition of the landowner whose heirs incorporated his holdings as Newhall Land in 1883.
Newhall Land executives and Newhall family members seeded the endeavor with $1.6 million in cash and stock. In 1970 the committee reorganized as the Henry Mayo Newhall Memorial Hospital board and placed Newhall Municipal Court Judge Adrian Adams at the helm. Members included Lowe, Samuel Tibbitts of LHS, and banker John S. Fuller as treasurer, along with a bevy of local movers and shakers: SCV Bank founder Elisha Agajanian, Dr. Arnold L. Barton from Inter-Valley, civil engineer Ed Bolden, Dr. Ciro S. Casas, John H. Clark, Vincent Cullinan, Samuel Fine, Chester H. Fortin, Matthew Gelso, Judge C.M. MacDougall, Peter McBean of the Newhall Land board, Jane Newhall, Claire Rider, founding COC President Robert Rockwell, Gordon Sim, musician Cliffie Stone and Dr. John O. Westwater.
Newhall Land pledged a 25-acre site at the future "T" intersection of McBean Parkway and Orchard Village Road for the hospital, and in December 1970 the board launched a drive to raise the rest of the $8.5 million needed for construction. LHS negotiated loans that enabled the plans to proceed in the interim and later guaranteed financing of a medical office building adjacent to the hospital.
In February 1971 the board hired its first employee, Bobbie Trueblood, wife of the former newspaper publisher, as its director of community relations with the charge of spreading the word about the future hospital and organizing support groups.
That same month the so-called Sylmar earthquake[7] of Feb. 9, 1971, killed 65 people and caused $500 million in property damage. Most deaths and injuries occurred in the San Fernando Valley, alleviating the strain that would otherwise have befallen the local hospitals – which were better prepared for such a calamity than they were in 1962, thanks in part to their participation in simulated disaster exercises sponsored by the Los Angeles County Medical Association.
Plans for Henry Mayo Newhall Memorial Hospital were nearly complete when the earthquake struck; now they would have to be reworked to meet evolving seismic safety requirements.
Project approval came June 25, 1971, when the regional governing body - the Comprehensive Health Planning Association of Los Angeles County - gave Henry Mayo the green light during a four-hour meeting at Holy Cross, over objections from Golden State hospital partisans who had filed a similar application for a new facility.

100th pink lady…

Rather than reinvent the wheel and recruit a whole new medical and nursing staff,…

(bobbie) who was well known in social circles…

... for example, in 1972 the Valencia aerospace controls company Hydraulic Research, led by Sam Garcia, donated xxx and the company’s employees gave another yyy.

Adrian says (Legacy 2007) he was chair for about 8 years
a onetime FBI agent who opened a private law practice in Newhall in 1953 and became the community’s “first second judge,” to use his term, in 1970 when the state added a second municipal court bench in the SCV. The first bench was occupied by C.M. MacDougall …. By the time Adams retired in 1991 there were 3..

Adrian W. Adams was appointed judge of the Newhall Municipal Court on Jan. 27, 1970, by Gov. Ronald Reagan. This photo ran Jan. 28, 1970, in The Signal, which wrote: 
ADRIAN ADAMS IS APPOINTED JUDGE 
    Newhall became a two-judge town yesterday with the appointment of Adrian Adams to the Newhall Municipal Court bench.
    The news came to the Newhall resident late Monday afternoon from Governor Reagan's office in Sacramento.
    The former FBI agent and current Newhall Elementary district board of education member said he was pleased. 
Adrian W. Adams was appointed judge of the Newhall Municipal Court in 1970 by Gov. Ronald Reagan. For the first time, the Newhall Judicial District had two judges. (C.M. MacDougall, already seated, was the other.) By the time Adams retired from the bench in 1991, a third seat had been added to the court. 
Adams opened a law practice on San Fernando Road in Newhall on May 1, 1953, and partnered with attorney James Lowder. In this photo, Adams is seen behind the desk at his Newhall law office in the 1950s. 

[1] Opened June 1960.
[2] The sailor was Philip J. Deniston of Tulare. Contemporary newspaper accounts identified him as Phillip (two L's), but his gravestone at Blooming Grove Cemetery in Clay County, Ark., where he is buried alongside other family members, shows him as Philip (one L) and gives a birth date of Oct. 26, 1942. “Never regained consciousness” – per communication of Aug. 20, 2012, with Charles Batten, a close friend of Deniston. Said Batten: “It was so strange to see him lying in bed, looking so healthy, and they managed to maintain his normal weight.”
[3] Deniston was still comatose a year later when he was wheeled into court as his parents sued the bus line. They were awarded $429,102.07 of a total sum of $660,008.62 awarded to multiple victims - then the largest jury award in Los Angeles County for a single collision. At some point, the sailor was probably transferred to a hospital outside of California; Batten (op. cit.) did not remember where he was hospitalized when he died on Feb. 20, 1967. The sailor’s father, S.J. Deniston Jr., predeceased him in 1965; his mother, Mary Kathleen (Wright) Deniston, died in 2005.
[4] Golden State filed its articles of incorporation Sept. 18, 1962.
[5] In August 1769, explorer Gaspar Portola and his party passed through the area and named its river and its principal canyon (i.e., the valley) Santa Clara, the Spanish form of St. Clare. In the 1940s, considering the confusion that existed with the northern city of the same name, locals started using the diminutive form, Santa Clarita, or alternately, the Little Santa Clara River Valley.
[6] It should be noted that the name “Canyon Country” was not yet in use. The area was considered part of Saugus.
[7] The epicenter was in the Iron Canyon area of Sand Canyon in the eastern Santa Clarita Valley.

Ground was broken in September 1972. LHS engineers and architects consulted with the Board of Trustees throughout the building process and served as coordinators for the project. Nurses, technicians and therapists from LHS facilities provided input on the design of specialty areas within the new hospital.

While the new facility was under construction, LHS purchased Inter-Valley Community Hospital (renaming it Hillside Community Hospital), to serve as an interim facility. This strategy enabled the recruitment of medical staff and employees, provided an educational model for the Trustees, stimulated additional community support and afforded vital continuity when the new facility was ready for occupancy. Operation of Hillside also generated about $1 million in profit, which became working capital for the new hospital.

Construction was completed in 1975, and the hospital opened for business in August of that year. Alongside was a new medical office building accommodating 15 physicians' offices and a retail pharmacy. The hospital supplied 100 beds and furnished Santa Clarita Valley with its first fully licensed intensive and coronary care units along with a paramedic base station, among other vital services. 

Van Nuys News June 27, 1971
Newhall Memorial Hospital Approved in Surprise Vote By JOHN STANCHFIELD Remnants of what four hours earlier had been a standing room only crowd at Holy Cross Hospital in San Fernando heard the C o m p Health Planning Association of Los Angeles County approve the cation to build the Henry Mayo Newhall Memorial Hospital The decision came pite a similar application by the Golden State Hospital during a four-hour public hearing on Friday [JUNE 25] The crowd numbering about 150 persons most of whom came to voice port for the Golden State facility appeared to be surprised as members of the Health Planning spoke their proval of a motion to grant the application to build to the p o w Newhall Memorial tal The a con- curred that the non-profit Lutheran Hospital Society facility to be constructed on 25 acres of land by the NewhaM Land and Fanning Co was deemed which will best serve the hall Saugus Valencia area The company edly has donated 000 in addition to the land for the new hospital The decision favoring Newhall Memorial was made despite provisions of the California State Plan for Hospitals which

COMPREHENSIVE HEALTI+-PLANNIING -AREAWIDE & LOCAL PLANNING AGENCIES By Marlene Chocel, M.P.H., Inter-Agency Activities Section 314(b) of the Comprehensive Health Pt anning and Public Health Services Act (Public Low 89-749) makes available federal grants for the development of compreher- sive areawide health planning agencies. Most of these agencies are voluntary non- profit or ,9,a,nizations; some are local governments and others are local councils of gov- ernment. Their purpose is to engage in comprehensive regional or local health planning, to develop and revise areacide health plans and to coordinate existing and planned health services, manpower, and facilities. As a result of public meetings held throughout the State, boundaries were established for nine planning areas in California. Areawide comprehensive health planning agen- cies (referred to as B agencies) have been formed in each of these nine areas,, and they encompass from two to twelve counties. The 8 agency to which Area V relates is the So. Calif. Health Planning Council; the Administrator is Mr. DeWitt Bishop. SC- COMP is an independent, non-profit corporation composed of a confederation of eight counties: Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, Ventura, Riverside, Scin Bernardino, lnyo, Mono, and Orange. Currently SC-COMP is focusing on the area of facilities review as, under a recent California low, each B agency has the responsibility for reviewing all health facility applications pertaining to construction, expansion or alteration for the purpose of increasing bed capacity or changing licensure category. Comprehensive Health Planning Association of Los Angeles County (COMP-LA), often referred to as a B-1 agency, is the largest component (about 70'/o of the population) of the eight-county areawide health planning agency (SC-COMP). It is staffed by an Executive Director,, Mr. Albert Whitehall and an Asst. Director, Mrs. Sylvia Morrison. COMP-LA receives 50% of its funds.fr(xn the federal government and is required to raise the balance from local resources, A Board of Directors, the majority of which must be consumers of health services,, is composed of approximately 85 consumer and provider members who meet quarterly. Kay D. Fuller, RN of Area V serves as an advisor to the Board, while Dr. Petit sits in an advisor,/ capacity on the Executive Committee. Much of the program is being developed through five standing committees which meet monthly and must have at least 51% consumer representation. Staff from Area V has been- appointed to serve either as provider members or dJVI$Ori on each of the standing committees. Personal Health Services: Donald W. Petit,,, MD, Marlene Checel, Kay D. Fuller. Health Manpower: Dorothy E. Anderson,, Marlene Checol. Environmental Health: Clyde Madden. Health Facilities and Services: William A. Markey, Frank F. Aguilera, Leon Houck. Mental Health & Mental Retardation: John S. Lloy'd,, Ph.D. 

Newhall Community (1926) - one with only six beds

golden state - 43 beds - 24124 lyons

June 23, 11:20PM: William S. Hart, 81, dies at L.A.'s California Lutheran Hospital, leaving his Newhall home and 80-acre estate to the County of Los Angeles.

HIllside community - 21704 Golden Triangle Rd. Saugus
HMNMH - Aug 3, 1975 ... Patients from Hillside Community Hospital in Saugus were moved to Newhall Memorial’s modern building, which was two stories tall and contained 100 beds.

Henry Mayo Newhall Memorial Hospital is a 221-bed not-for-profit community hospital and trauma center, located in the heart of the Santa Clarita Valley. We are honored to serve what we believe is the best community in California; safe, clean, family-focused and a great place to live and work.

MISSION
“To improve the health of our community through 
compassion and excellence in healthcare services.”

VISION
“To create the ideal healthcare environment 
to surpass expectations.”

VALUES
Integrity Trust & Respect Accountability Teamwork
Clinical Competence & Quality Compassionate Care 
History of Henry Mayo Newhall Mem Hosp
Creating a hospital for a growing community

The story of Henry Mayo Newhall Memorial Hospital is a tribute to initiative, leadership and community support. Twenty years before the City of Santa Clarita was incorporated (in 1987), civic planners acknowledged the importance of quality health care and enfolded the necessary elements into their vision.

Until the 1960s, Santa Clarita Valley's needs were met by several small hospitals (one with only six beds). However, when the master planned community of Valencia was approved by Los Angeles County in 1965, its developer, The Newhall Land and Farming Company (Newhall Land) knew that larger, more sophisticated medical facilities would be necessary.

Newhall Land donated 25 acres of land for a hospital in the center of town. Thomas Lowe, then chief executive officer of Newhall Land, formed an alliance with the Lutheran Hospital Society (LHS), an organization with half a century's experience developing and managing community not-for-profit hospitals. 

The two organizations recruited a citizens' committee to help raise the funds needed to construct and open the new hospital. Newhall Land executives and members of the Newhall family donated $1.6 million in cash and stock for development funds. 

By 1970, the citizens' committee had become the hospital Board of Trustees, under the leadership of Judge Adrian Adams. In December, they launched a fund drive to raise $10 million. LHS negotiated loans that enabled the project to proceed while the fund drive was underway and later guaranteed financing of a medical office building adjacent to the hospital. 

In February 1971, the trustees hired the hospital's first employee, Bobbie Trueblood (Davis), director of community relations, to spread the word about the hospital-to-be and organize support groups. 

Engineering drawings were almost complete when the "Sylmar Earthquake" struck (February 9, 1971), killing 65 people and causing $500 million in property damage throughout the region. Designers wisely held up final plans for the hospital and then modified them to meet stricter State of California seismic safety requirements.

Ground was broken in September 1972. LHS engineers and architects consulted with the Board of Trustees throughout the building process and served as coordinators for the project. Nurses, technicians and therapists from LHS facilities provided input on the design of specialty areas within the new hospital.

While the new facility was under construction, LHS purchased Inter-Valley Community Hospital (renaming it Hillside Community Hospital), to serve as an interim facility. This strategy enabled the recruitment of medical staff and employees, provided an educational model for the Trustees, stimulated additional community support and afforded vital continuity when the new facility was ready for occupancy. Operation of Hillside also generated about $1 million in profit, which became working capital for the new hospital.

Construction was completed in 1975, and the hospital opened for business in August of that year. Alongside was a new medical office building accommodating 15 physicians' offices and a retail pharmacy. The hospital supplied 100 beds and furnished Santa Clarita Valley with its first fully licensed intensive and coronary care units along with a paramedic base station, among other vital services. 

We will have you tell your story if you wish to newsreel and radio scene until all the passengers were removed Then he was hospitalized Carl Peters 49 of the hall Ambulance Service was first to arrive It was Almost he said People were moaning and crying for help It was hard to tell which were all in pretty bad shape I carried six in my ambulance five of them stretcher esses It was awful The injured men women and children were all pleading for help 7 On List The Injured were taken to Holy Cross Hospital In San Fernando and Santa Clarita Hospital in Saugus Holy Cross listed these persons as In critical Walter Hallow 76 30599 Highway 74 Hemet Luciano 36 Rancho San Jose Deola Wilson 54 1731 nue St Long Beach Those with lesser injuries were Identified Fern gan 27 Route 1 Box La Verne Henderson 45 3505 Wilmington Blvd ington Eulah F Johnson Blvd Fresno Manuel Martinez -18 18532 E Vine Orange Aristeo 25 Route 1 Box 930 Esparto Yolo County Mary Neff 45 2928 Holt Way Sec: Listed In critical condition st Santa Clarita Aurora Taylor 60 Highland Lillian 52 Gridley Mrs Mary LeBeck 52 Sacramento Seibern 48 10606 Lakewood Blvd Downey Also treated at Santa Clarita S LInebarger of 31 Mexico Richard Brand 23 4031 E Ella St Enrique 22 415 O St mento 
Bus Crash Kills Woman from Page 99, took on the aspects of a ly nightmare as other motorists pulled their auto headlights looming the truck ing grain over the were jammed in both The truck James Ro- 25. minor He said ho was 8 to 10 miles an hour when he was struck from The bus H. F. 42. of 722 W. Swift blood from his refused to leave the scene until all the passengers were Then ne was Carl 49, of the Newhall Ambulance was first to It was almost ic were moaning and crying for was hard to tell which to They were all in pretty bad I carried six in my five of them stretcher it was The injured men and women and children were all pleading for The injured were taken to Holy Cross Hospital in San Fernando and Santa Clarita Hospital ir

Score Hurt in Crash A Greyhound bus rammed the rear of a big grain truck during a fog on the mountainous Ridge Route today between Gorman and One side of the bus was ripped and killing a woman William senger and injuring a the Associated Press Several were reported in critical A fire Al said the truck had just pulled onto the highway from a frontage road about 4:40 a.m. when the collision Whole Side Crumpled never seen anything like he entire right side of the bus was crumpled and torn like a cardboard The dead about 40 or 50, was tentatively identified by the California Highway Patrol as Mrs. Virginia 303 W. Transit It took firemen nearly two hours to extricate the All seats on the right side were crushed Firemen said many passengers on that side suffered broken One fireman interior of the bus was jumbled and there was broken glass Everyone inside was cut and The right front section was completely wiped It was a tangled mess of steel and Thinks of Others One trapped in the joked with firemen as they worked around all she kept care of those who are Firemen said the woman's foot was The 30 miles northwest of Los Angeles on U.S. Highway 99, took on the aspects of a ghostly nightmare as other motorists pulled their auto headlights looming in the The truck and trailer spilling grain over the Vehicles were jammed in both The bus was southbound from either San Francisco or headed for Los Angeles with more than a score of Like Blowout John 19, a service station attendant in the said he heard what sounded like a huge It turned out to be the The he had pulled onto the highway after stopping at a The truck James 26, suffered minor He said he was going only 8 to 10 miles an hour when he was struck from The bus H. F. 42, blood streaming from his refused to leave the scene until all the passengers were Thn he was Carl 49, of the Newhall Ambulance was first to was almost he were moaning and crying for Plead for Help was hard to tell which ones to They were all in pretty bad I carried six in my five of them stretcher It The injured men and women and children were all pleading for The injured were taken to Holy Hospital in San Fernando and Santa Clarita Hospital in Holy Cross listed these persons as in critical Walter 76, Luciano 36, Rancho San Deola 54, Long Those with lesser injuries were identified Fern 27, La Burt 45, Eulah 54, Manuel 18, Aristeo 25, Yolo Mary 45,