page_title: Newhall Pass
section_title: Beale's Cut
hierarchical_section_title: Newhall Pass / History / Beale's Cut
caption_attribution_description: English: Beale's Cut today
context_page_description: Newhall Pass is a low mountain pass in Los Angeles County, California. Historically called Fremont Pass and San Fernando Pass, with Beale's Cut, it separates the Santa Susana Mountains from the San Gabriel Mountains. Although the pass was originally discovered in August 1769 by Catalan explorer Gaspar de Portolà, it eventually was named for Henry Newhall, a significant businessman in the area during the 19th century.
  Newhall Pass links the San Fernando Valley to the Santa Clarita Valley and is a main entry to the Greater Los Angeles area. The pass is known for the massive Newhall Pass interchange and the historic San Fernando Tunnel.
  Weather conditions in the pass can vary from triple-digit heat in the summer to rare below freezing temperatures in winter. Snow is possible from December to February, but is quite uncommon; When it does occur, it can lead to heavy traffic and accidents. The pass also is susceptible to heavy flooding during La Niña and El Niño events. Wildfires have also occasionally closed down the pass and California State Route 14.
context_section_description: The steep pass was made easier to cross with a deep slot-like road cut by Charles H. Brindley, Andrés Pico, and James R. Vineyard, to whom the State of California awarded a twenty-year contract to maintain the turnpike and collect tolls. Thus,  the "San Fernando Mountain," the most daunting obstacle along the Fort Tejon Road, the main inland route from Los Angeles to the north, was cut through. Butterfield Overland Mail, a stagecoach that operated mail between St. Louis, Missouri, and San Francisco, began using it directly.
  In 1861, a landowner and surveyor named Edward Beale was appointed by President Abraham Lincoln as the federal Surveyor General of California and Nevada. Beale challenged General Pico's loyalty to the new president and in 1863, Beale was awarded the right to collect the toll in the pass.  Beale maintained rights to the cut for the next twenty years and so it became known as "Beale's Cut."
  Beale's Cut was eventually deepened to 90 feet (27.4 m).  It lasted as a transportation passage in the neighborhood of present-day Newhall Pass until construction of the Newhall Tunnel was completed in 1910.
  Beale's Cut appeared in many silent western movies. The location became a favorite of movie producers like John Ford and D. W. Griffith. In Ford's 1923 film Three Jumps Ahead, American cowboy star Tom Mix is filmed jumping over the pass, although it has been widely debated among film historians whether Mix himself made the jump, with any of a number of stuntmen claiming credit for it while some experts believe the jump was achieved purely through special effects. John Ford used the location in at least four films over a twenty-year period beginning as early as 1917.
  Still in existence today, it is no longer passable by automobiles. It suffered a partial collapse during the Northridge Earthquake, on January 17, 1994, and now is about 30 feet (9.1 m) deep. It is visible from the Sierra Highway about one mile north from the intersection of The Old Road and Sierra Highway, just after the first bridge under SR 14. It lies between Sierra Highway and the new freeway, about a quarter mile to the northeast of a stone marker. Beale's Cut is difficult to find today because it is fenced off and not close enough to the Sierra Highway to be easily seen.
caption: Beale's Cut in 2003
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