History Includes ‘Serving’ Neighbors – SCV History

Collaboration is an important word in museums. When the Santa Clarita Valley Historical Socie-ty was asked for some collections guidance by Rancho Camulos Museum, Archivist Eva Gritz was quick to respond.
Rancho Camulos is a national historic landmark located along Highway 126, supported by a small paid staff and several volunteers. Members of the Daughters of the American Revolution, Santa Clarita Chapter, wanted to help organize the museum’s collection and received a $3,250 grant from the national DAR headquarters to support the project.
Hillary West, the chapter’s Historic Preservation chair, and Susanna Clark, the project chair, asked Historical Society VP Leon Worden if he could recommend some archival products, com-puter software, and servers for the project. He put them together with Gritz for some advice.
“Leon had me show them some scanning tricks,” Gritz said. “They’ve come to the Santa Clarita History Center to learn how to digitize their collection.”
That collection includes literature, letters, pictures and other ephemera related to the Rancho that has never been approached on a large scale – to make the collection not only cohesive, but also searchable by researchers around the world.
The DAR members and a handful of volunteers have been working over the last year to pre-serve two-dimensional items, and they hope to expand their efforts to include larger artifacts as well as information about the historic museum buildings.
Retired preservation consultant Judy Triem, Rancho Camulos Museum’s vice chair, said the effort will help tell the story of the Rancho’s two families, the Del Valles and the Rubels.
“There have been previous efforts to catalogue items, but they were not complete,” Triem said, adding that there are hundreds of items that will need to be included, but the end result of the DAR project will be a valuable tool to the landmark and beyond.
Gritz said advising the Rancho Camulos team has been a great experience.
“We have very similar goals as far as the digitization of our collections. Plus, it’s always nice to learn a little more about the history of Ranch Camulos and our neighboring cities of Piru and Fillmore.”