A Look Back:

There appeared to be a war going on right here in Huntington Beach, a tug-of-war between the Bolsa Chica Land Trust and Hearthside Homes over the discovery of nearly 200 human bone fragments of the Gabrielino-Tongva and Juaneno tribes of Mission Indians at the Hearthside Homes development.

I was once asked if there were more bones to be found around Huntington Beach, and I answered, well of course there will be. But probably the fragments would not be human bones, but that of animals.

Before the automobile became popular as a means of transportation, it was the horse that pulled the wagon and carried the student to school and when they grew old and died, they were usually buried on the owner’s property along with cows, pigs and family pets.

Discoveries of bone parts are a common occurrence, as was the discovery at the T.G. Harriman sand pit near the present location of Gothard Street and Ellis Avenue, near where the old La Bolsa Tile factory was located.

It was in September 1926 that workers were digging up sand when they spotted what appeared to be that of a large ivory tusk measuring some 16-feet long sticking out from the sand. The owner of the sand pit was called over to see the discovery and he notified J.W. Lytle, an assistant paleontologist from the Los Angeles County Museum, to come see the discovery. Lytle and museum director William Alanson Bryan made the trip and joined an exploration party that helped dig a 35-foot-deep pit.

Inside this sand pit they unearthed a second ivory tusk of about the same size that Lytle identified as belonging to an imperial elephant that roamed North America from northern Mexico, Texas, California, Oregon and Washington 40,000 to 200,000 years ago.

As the workmen continued digging, more bone fragments were discovered including a large tooth, a femur, a toe bone, a rib and several smaller bones. As the pit was enlarged more were unearthed, including a third tusk.

Using the tusk as a measurement of height, Lytle was able to estimate the animal was between 12- to 15-feet tall.

At one point the workmen uncovered a mass of fragments that appeared to have washed here from some other area by a large flood.

Robert Masters was placed in charge of excavating the pit assisted by C.M. Bland, R.M. Cairns and a group of hard workers.

The last two ivory tusks were in poor shape because of the ground water and had to be carefully transported along with the rest of the artifacts back to the Los Angeles County Museum where Lytle and Bryan examined the treasures.

Once the news of the find reached the ears of C.G. Reynolds, our city’s publicity director, he made sure newspapers around the county were notified of the prehistoric find in Huntington Beach.

On Dec. 26, 1930, two ranch hands, N. Acevedo and W. Peters, were plowing the soft peat bogs on the Callen Brothers/Sherman Buck property next to the old Bolsa Chica Gun Club, when their plow blade suddenly threw up out of the ground a human skull.

The two men left the site to tell their boss about their discovery. In a short time the men returned to the site with shovels in hand and slowly began digging in a space of 15 by 30 feet. To their amazement they had unearthed some 100 skulls.

Museum personnel from Los Angeles were called in and after a careful study found the skulls and skeletons unearthed were human and could date from 500 to 5,000 years ago and appeared to all be males and were mostly those of young men.

Word of the discovery spread like wildfire, and in a few days hundreds of people came to the site to unlawfully dig for artifacts to take home. The ranch hands were kept busy trying to keep these scavengers from looting.

Once digging could resume, more discoveries were in store. It was found that the skeletons were laid close together, which might indicate a battle burial. In this case, none of the bones appeared to show signs of being broken or crushed as might have resulted from a battle, so they likely died from disease.

Stone metates were unearthed along with strange round stones with holes around the edges that today we call cog stones, their use remains a secret. Arrowheads were unearthed, some made of the best obsidian that showed great care in their making. Shells of all sizes were discovered, including what appeared to be a large abalone shell that may have held food for the afterlife. In one grave a clay pipe was uncovered and in another lay a dog skull. The skeletons were given to the Los Angeles County Museum and to large universities for study.

JERRY PERSON is the city’s historian and a longtime Huntington Beach resident. If you have ideas for future columns, write him at P.O. Box 7182, Huntington Beach, CA 92615.