Ten Interesting Facts About Fillmore

WHERE HIGHWAY 126 MEETS CENTRAL AVENUE - With the towering San Cayetano Mountain peak providing a fantastic scenic backdrop the small Ventura County city of Fillmore is a unique fusion of Southern California's past and present. Located in the Santa Clara River Valley, roughly between Santa Clarita and Ventura along State Route 126, in the last week Fillmore has been in the news as the area has been experiencing dozens of small earthquakes. Aside from Mother Nature reminding us we live in earthquake country, there are more interesting things about Fillmore than may meet the eye.


View of downtown Fillmore. Used under a Creative Commons License.

So, as the city celebrates its 101st anniversary, here are ten interesting facts about "The Last Best Small Town," Fillmore.

1 - The City of Fillmore Is NOT Named After The President

Yes, let us get this one out of the way. Millard Fillmore was the 13th President of the United States, and 12th Vice President of the United States, and there are several cities, street names and places, like The Fillmore in San Francisco, around the country named after the president, but that city in Ventura County is not one of them. The city name has nothing at all to do with the president.

2 - So, Where Did Fillmore Get Its Name?

Fillmore's name comes not from a former president, but a former general superintendent. The name was J. A. Fillmore, and he was the general superintendent for the pacific division of the Southern Pacific Railroad.

3 - The Railroad Is How Fillmore Came To Be

Like a handful of cities around Southern California the city Fillmore came to be thanks to "The Octopus," Southern Pacific Railroad. In 1887 Southern Pacific built a railroad through the Santa Clara River Valley, and the powers that be at the railroad, and the Southern Pacific was a very large power, established this little town of Fillmore. On July 10, 1914, Fillmore residents voted to incorporate the the town, officially making it the city of Fillmore.

4 - Fillmore's Roots Go Way Back Before The Railroad

On around August 11, 1769, the controversial Spanish Portola expedition came down into the valley from a night's encampment near Rancho Camulos and set up camp in what is now modern day Fillmore. A short time before the full Spanish Portola expedition came into the valley Franciscan Fray Juan Crespi, who had been traveling with the expedition, ventured on his own in a trip to the then unnamed Santa Clara River Valley, and during that lone venture Franciscan Crespi named the valley, Cañada de Santa Clara.

5 - Hollywood Comes To Fillmore

With its charming small town feeling and look, old trains provided by The Fillmore & Western Railway, citrus fields all around and the city being rather close to the Entertainment Capital of The World, many films and television shows have been filmed in Fillmore. In fact, the City of Fillmore has its own Film Fillmore website where you, whether you are a film student, independent film maker or blockbuster film director, can apply for a film permit.

6 - Badly Hit By The 1994 Northridge Earthquake


Damaged hotel and theater building in downtown Fillmore following the 1994 earthquake. Photograph by NOAA/NGDC, J. Dewey, U.S. Geological Survey. Image in public domain.

As the Los Angeles film industry has found its way to this little city northwest of The City of Angeles its real life disasters have also been felt in Fillmore. The 1994 Northridge Earthquake still remains the most costly earthquake in American history, and the damage was not confined to the L.A. area. The thrust of that earthquake at 4:31 a.m. moved in a northwest direction, which resulted in severe damage in Fillmore. Its historic downtown area suffered severe damage, and many homes were badly damaged. This bit of recent history is not lost on many Fillmore residents now dealing with and wondering about the dozens of minor earthquakes in recent days.

7 - You Can Still Hear, and Ride, The Old Trains In Fillmore

Fillmore's modern existence came to be thanks to the railroads. Now thanks to The Fillmore & Western Railway you can still ride the old trains. Throughout the year The Fillmore & Western Railway provides train rides along the railway with its locomotives through the Santa Clara River Valley.

8 - Fillmore Has Its Own Newspaper Of Record

While The Ventura County Star is the main newspaper for Ventura County, Fillmore has its own newspaper, The Fillmore Gazette, "The Newspaper of Record for the City of Fillmore."

9 - Fillmore Freeway Debate

The 126 provides a very scenic drive between Ventura and Santa Clarita, and it has become a not-so-secret route between Ventura County and the L.A. area in the last 20 years for commuters not too happy to use U.S. Route 101. With more drivers motoring along highway 126 it has earned a not so great name, Blood Alley, due to the high volume of accidents. In these last couple decades there has been some debate and study whether or not to build a freeway from the Interstate 5 and SR 126 interchange in Santa Clarita to where the 126 becomes a freeway in Santa Paula. This idea has not quite been welcomed by city officials and boosters in Fillmore. City officials fear a freeway will bypass the city, which will cause Fillmore to lose lots of money as motorists would not be traveling through the heart of Fillmore.

As it stands now the California Department of Transportation (CalTrans) has no immediate plans to build a freeway. In the meantime there have been improvements along the 126, such as adding lanes.

10 - It Is Still A Big Agriculture City

In a lot of cities around Southern California you would be very hard-pressed to find a place where the economy is driven by agriculture. The hundreds of citrus groves that once dominated the Southern California landscape gave way to paved roads, tract-housing and strip malls. In Fillmore you can still find rows of citrus trees around the town, and the Fillmore economy is driven by agriculture.

A Commentary: Thoughts of Southern California

LOS ANGELES - As the first turbulent decade of the new century draws to a close next year in 2010 a question for us at home remains, what is Southern California and where is it going?

Depends who you ask.

Some geography fiends consider Southern California to be from Santa Barbara to the Mexican border in San Diego, and everything in between Santa Monica and Blythe.

Depending where you are at in Southern California that could be debatable.

Us in the Los Angeles Basin (or is it Greater L.A.?) view Southern California as the entire city of L.A., the South Bay and Long Beach, San Gabriel Valley, Inland Empire and north Orange County, with maybe parts of the Santa Clarita and Antelope Valleys.

This past decade south Orange County has been viewed by the world through the bad interpretation of drama by horribly stereotypical rich kids, in a place otherwise know by its unofficial United Nations designate, “The O.C.”

Often considered to be the jewel of Southern California, within the past ten years Santa Barbara has broken away and allied itself with the majestic Central Coast.

Agriculturally rich Ventura County seems to find itself torn between wanting to be apart of the peacefully elegant Central Coast and chaotic Southern California.

Meanwhile San Diegans long declared “America’s Finest City” to be located "south of Southern California."

What about lonely Imperial County? Tucked away in the southwest pocket of the Golden State its small farming towns give it a feeling of being somewhere in the mid-west where maybe the excitement for a warm summer Saturday night is going down by the stinkiest river in America, The New River, which flows out of Mexicali, Baja California, Mexico into the Salton Sea, and wondering how many beers and dares does it take to jump into the river.

Maybe it is numbers that define Southern California.

There are many who ardently claim they are from 90210, and several who will adamantly deny residing in the 909, and others who bare it all for the harsh truth of the camera lens and moan, “I don’t date, 818!”

Does that make the Southland just one big vapid wasteland?

Maybe, but in the past decade something different has been occurring. Instead of long-winded complaining about nothing perspicaciously about how life here should be, such complaints are finally turning into genuine action promising to change and reshape Southern California in next decade. Residents tired of seeing their piece of Southern California ripped apart and replaced with heartless stone and steel have taken political action in preserving their old neighborhoods, which has brought neighbors and government officials together to fight the homogenization of big-box stores and symmetrical track-houses, save the few remaining orange groves and improve public transit.

After all have you seen the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s transit projects for the next decade? By the end of the next decade Southern California should finally have the beginning of a comprehensive public transit system.

Amazingly in the past decade (destructive fires aside) Southern California has not experienced an ”smog alert.” As younger children prepare for their first day of school parents tell of their school days in the 70s and 80s with stories of how some days we were forced to stayed inside the classroom during recess, because the air was so bad, and people had to be hospitalized.

Maybe us Southern Californians could be defined as a cyclical people. Decades ago we fled our urban cores, shredded our Pacific Electric and Los Angeles Railway lines and split neighborhoods apart building freeways (or as long time locals around the Santa Monica Freeway refer to it, the Berlin Wall) to the suburbs as we willingly sit in traffic for an hour driving back to the urban core working in the office and back another hour on the freeway home. The suburbs have been growing like an urban fungus in all directions clearing out citrus groves and farmland. Now with a new generation being fed up wasting life sitting on a freeway, urban cores have come back to life while many conversations ask why in the hell did we demolish the best transit system in the country.

Ironically attributing to the renewed preservation of Southern California has been one of our biggest economic forces, “Hollywood,” which has not so subtly been leaking out of the state and into new entertainment industry hubs around the world. The idea of “Hollywood” has brought many former high school drama club president hopefuls on a Greyhound Bus to Cahuenga Boulevard hoping to land the Emmy winning role and be bestowed with wealth and power, while living in an isolated gated community north of Sunset Boulevard.

The closest to such wealth and power is often found becoming the shift manager at some restaurant in Los Feliz as the idea of Hollywood has proven dreams have a knack of just not coming true, resulting in Southern California becoming a transitory place for broken hopefuls, who bring with them no respect or civic pride for the city they call home, for this month.

The next decade shows as the romance and fantasy of Hollywood leaves Southern California to whatever unfortunate place has the honor of being the new “Hollywood,” the empty vacuum will be filled with residents, many born here and others welcomed here from around the world, who see us as more than an dream breaking town, but a place and people ultimately searching, rediscovering and preserving its rich cultural past, or at least creating an idea of past that exists in our own fantasyland, all while cultivating an new image.

Sure, Santa Ana Winds will not blow all our vapid identity out to the Pacific, as human nature desires to create and serve such people, but a renewed hopeful Southern California is on the horizon for the new decade.

Just what the end result will be, along with the happiness and tragedy of the new decade, remains to be seen.

One thing is certain, as the years go on one person has transcended the decades uniting Southern Californians, Cal Worthington still encouraging us to come on down to Long Beach accompanied by one of the most hilarious unintentional misinterpreted catchy commercial jingles.