The Old Well and Barn on America 250

The Sunland-Tujunga Bicentennial Trail, developed in 1976, is now the America 250 Trail. In the past weeks, we’ve visited 13 of the 25 locations highlighted on this journey into the past. On we go to take in this week’s sights of Sister Elsie’s Well at 6720 St. Estaban St. and the former Begue Barn location at 9729 Tujunga Canyon Blvd. Both of these sites are associated with the Begue family.

Bertrand Begue was born in France in 1824. At the age of 18, he arrived in New Orleans to begin his life in America. He and his German wife Mary were living near Sacramento in 1867 when their son Phillip was born. Tragically, Mary passed away at the young age of 30 and Bertrand eventually arrived, with his then-17-year-old son, to our valley in 1884. The Begues were among the earliest residents in the area having homesteaded the land on both sides of Tujunga Canyon Boulevard as it descends from Foothill Boulevard down to Fehlhaber-Houk Park.

Mike Lawler has written about Phillip Begue many times over the years and has described him as a notorious storyteller, so it’s difficult to extract the truth from the shadows. One story told is that when Bertrand and Phillip arrived at their new property they found some old, dilapidated cabins alongside an old well. Many stories have been written about Sister Elsie and her well.

According to Phillip, Sister Elsie was a Catholic nun sent by the Sisters of Charity to oversee an Indian orphanage on the site near the well. Legend says that as padres walked to and from the San Fernando and San Gabriel missions they often passed this spot, and Elsie would raise a bucket of cold water from the well to quench their thirst. 

She was a beloved figure among the dwindling native population, teaching them skills they would need to survive in the brave new world that they faced. Upon her death, one legend describes the natives carrying her body to the top of Mount Lukens and laying her to rest there. A path can be found today that leads to the top of Mount Lukens with the name of Sister Elsie’s Trail. What is not widely known is that the original name of Mount Lukens was Sister Elsie’s Peak.

While many have tried, the story seems impossible to verify. I’m not aware of a single document that has surfaced regarding Sister Elsie’s existence – just many stories and local places carrying her name. The old well can still be visited in the courtyard of the Foothill Retirement Home and a plaque there reads, “Dug by neophytes on the Rancho Las Hermanas (Ranch of the Sisters) and used by the padres traveling over the old mission trail during the Spanish regime.”

The other location – the Begue Barn – was built by Bertrand and Phillip not long after their arrival. 

I have a connection to this barn that is a bit unusual. Sometime around 2010, I set out on a project to take photographs as identical as I could to photos of the area that were taken 100 years prior. I had a picture of the Begue Barn taken about 1900, so I headed over to take the same photo all those years later. The very next day, I was driving up Tujunga Canyon when I glanced toward the old barn. It was gone! The day after I took that last photograph the barn was torn to the ground, apparently deemed too dangerous to leave standing.

The barn sat along the pathway that heads into the tree line, just beyond the palm tree on the right side of the drive. I’ve heard that the old barn was the location of some major parties and celebrations over the past hundred years. Many claimed they were “barn burners.”