The First School and the Pepper Tree Giant

The first teacher snapped off a willow branch and then another. Before his students arrived, the young man fashioned a set of switches and concealed them within his desk. This schoolmaster, only seeking to establish a bit more discipline within his classroom, was wholly unprepared for what would next happen.

It was a one-room schoolhouse, the first to serve the pioneer families of Sunland and Tujunga, built in 1888 just south of Foothill Boulevard in Lake View Terrace. If there was one word to describe these pioneering men and women it would be hearty. These were tough folks and their children were no different. 

After the students arrived order was once again elusive so the teacher began bringing out the switches and laying them on his desk. His warning noticed, the antics began to wane until a young boy in the front row, emulating his teacher, pulled a slingshot from his pocket and laid it out in front of him. Two older girls followed suit and laid out a pair of large jackknives. In the back of the room, one of the older teens removed a pistol from his satchel and loudly deposited it upon his desk. This would be the first teacher’s last day at the little schoolhouse.

The students’ journey to and from school was three plus miles and along the way they could encounter rattlesnakes, cougars, coyotes and even bears. It wasn’t uncommon for the older children to be provided with guns by their parents. Not to mention, bagging a rabbit on the way home from school would get students a pat on the head before the rabbit was quickly prepared for dinner.

The schoolhouse entry was a two-story tower on the northeast corner of a property with a bell in its belfry. The attached classroom served about 25 pupils a year during its operation, comprising grades one through eight. About half of the students traveled from Sunland and Tujunga for the first decade until a new school was built in Sunland Park at the turn of the century.

With no teacher there was no school, so a call went out for a new schoolmaster. Enter Virginia Newcomb, sent by the Normal School in Los Angeles, an institute for training teachers. The school may have been aware of the issues as Virginia arrived well prepared for her task. Her father was a military man who fought for the Confederacy under the command of General Robert E. Lee. Virginia was born into a regimented household with seven siblings, many of whom were brothers. Order was gained quickly after her arrival.

In 1976, a group of “old timers” set about documenting places of interest and on their list was the old schoolhouse. They declared it the first school to exist in the Sunland-Tujunga Valley at 10568 Foothill Blvd. They also stated that the school had been active through the early 1930s and was torn down about 1940. Its bell was then moved to the Stonehurst School in Sun Valley.

A piece I found written in 1953 mentioned that when this first school was built the perimeter had been planted with pepper trees and, though the building was gone, the trees remained. So I went on a history hunt for pepper trees.

My search took me to the south side of the 210 Freeway. As I approached the area where the school once stood I gazed upon the largest pepper tree I have ever seen. It’s a giant with large drooping branches that swing low to the ground surrounding a massive trunk many feet in diameter, creating an amazing space beneath its branches.

This past June I had the privilege of being a guest at the Stonehurst School in Sun Valley for the annual ringing of its graduation bell – a bell that may have rung for nearly 140 years.