Wiley's Windlass
(Pre-) Newhall, California

Wiley's windlass. Traversing the Newhall Pass (before it was the "Newhall" Pass) was a harrowing experience in the 1850s before the wagon road was improved first by troops under the command of Gen. Phineas Banning, and then by Gen. Edward F. Beale. Henry Clay Wiley, an early entrepreneur, ran a stagecoach stop in the early 1850s comlete with rooms, restaurant and a saloon, and offered to lower wagons over the mountains for a fee. Here, a wagon is shown being lowered into the Santa Clarita Valley with Wiley's rope and pulley system, known as a windlass.

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HS9029: 9600 dpi jpeg from printed image