Simi Hills - Human History

Human History

The Simi Hills were inhabited for over 8,000 years by Paleo-indians and Chumash-Venturaño Native Americans for settlements and hunting grounds. The Chumash had the established village of Hu'wam in Cañon del Escorpión (Bell Canyon). It was a multicultural 'crossroads' destination, where Chumash, Tongva, and Tataviam peoples traded and lived beside Bell Creek below Escorpión Peak, at the present day Bell Canyon Park. This peak in the Simi Hills (aka: Castle Peak) is one of nine alignment points in Chumash territory and is essential to maintaining the balance of the natural world. Upstream were healing springs and are rock outcrop 'grinding stones.' The Burro Flats Painted Cave, an example of the Rock art of the Chumash people, is nearby.

The Juan Bautista de Anza expedition passed through the area in 1769, being the first European sighting of the Simi Hills. The U.S. National Park Service administers the Juan Bautista de Anza National Historic Trail which enters at Moore Canyon in El Escorpión Park and crosses across the southern Hills through Upper Las Virgenes Canyon Open Space Preserve and Cheeseboro/Palo Comado Canyon Park to the Conejo Valley. In 1845 the land grant for Rancho El Escorpión, beside the Peak and named for it, was issued to one Chumash and two Tongva people and a rare instance of Native Americans being grantees, by Mexican Governor Pío Pico. The Rancho El Conejo was to the west, and included that end of the Simi Hills.

In the first half of the 20th century there were four large movie ranches in the Simi Hills for filming motion pictures on location. The gated community of Bell Canyon began development of geographic Bell Canyon in the 1968. To the north of U.S. 101, east of Thousand Oaks, and west of Simi Valley the early 1960s further suburban expansion of metropolitan Los Angeles brought small to significant parcels in the Simi Hills under development. Hillside subdivisions regraded natural contours into terraced lots, changing the Hills viewshed, drainage patterns, and habitats in those areas. The extensive planned new community projects at Jordan Ranch and Ahmanson Ranch were eventually stopped by local citizens and the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy keeping extensive Hills acreage natural in open space parks.

The Simi Hills were home of the Rocketdyne Santa Susana Field Laboratory (SSFL) for open-air testing of rocket engines from 1947 to 1990, and the site of an experimental nuclear reactor experiments, one having meltdown accident in 1959. The groundwater under portions of the Simi Hills, contaminated with toxins and radionuclides that were also historically used at SSFL, has been and are a key concern in new development decisions and the SSFL property's future limited to parkland use after an impending cleanup, initiating preservation of more open space in the range.

The NPS Rim of the Valley Trail Corridor is in the planning stages and includes the Simi Hills open space parklands and proposed new areas.