Tujunga Ghost Stories

I’ve been writing the last few weeks on the origins of the names of the canyons on the north side of our valley and stories surrounding them. Let me take a short break from that in honor of Halloween, and I’ll relate a few ghost stories from Sunland-Tujunga.

I recently picked up a book called “Folk Tales of Sunland Tujunga,” a collection of local supernatural stories produced by the Little Landers Historical Society and available at Bolton Hall. Two of the stories involve roads. The first is about an apparition that has been seen by several motorists in Big Tujunga Canyon. Always at night, the apparition is seen by the side of the highway about two miles above the second bridge where the road steepens as it climbs up the canyon to Angeles Forest Highway. A man walking toward Tujunga is caught in the headlights of passing cars. If he is seen head-on, he smiles, sticks out his thumb, and waves frantically with the other hand. If approached from behind, he turns around as he’s walking, and again puts out his thumb and waves, even jumping up and down to get the attention of the driver.

Many people have stopped, thinking he’s in need of help, but in each case, he seems to disappear as soon as they pull over. Despite waiting or even doubling back, the drivers find nothing but dark empty highway. Some drivers even reported that they felt like they were “being watched.” Perhaps there was some tragedy on that treacherous highway. Maybe a car went over the side, and a victim of the accident is still trying to summon help.

A landmark on Sunland Boulevard since the 1930s is an old-world European-styled restaurant. Old Vienna was its name for most of that time. Today it’s Villa Terraza. Up until Sunland Boulevard was straightened and widened in the 1950s, there was a sharp S-curve in front of the restaurant that was the scene of several fatal accidents. Many drivers died on that spot. Today, a few drivers have reported that, as they passed the restaurant at night, they have had to brake hard or swerve when an old-fashioned ’40s-style car appeared in their headlights and suddenly veered in front of them, or a seemingly drunk man staggered into the road in front of them. In all cases, nothing is found, save for the skid-marks of the modern car. Apparently some forgotten accident is played out again and again on the dark road.

Another story involves a phantom airplane over Sunland Park. One afternoon in late December 1950, a Glendale family took their small plane for a sightseeing flight. They flew low and slow over Tujunga, then circled slowly over Sunland Park for about 10 minutes. The pilot pulled the nose of the plane up to gain altitude, but it was too sharp a climb for their slow speed. The plane stalled, nosed over and fell out of the sky. It smacked into the ground at the edge of Sunland Boulevard, right where the freeway crosses today. The wreckage burst into flame, and the five people aboard that weren’t killed on impact burned to death. In modern times, several witnesses have reported that they have heard a single engine plane circling very low over Sunland Park. It’s always near the end of December in the late afternoon. They can clearly hear the low-flying plane, but looking up toward the sound in the clear sky, they see nothing.

The last story I’ll relate took place in the McGroarty House, former home of poet and writer John Steven McGroarty, but today a museum and cultural center. Many photos exist of a favorite pet of McGroarty’s, a big yellow cat. Volunteers were working in the house in the 1970s. A beam of light from the setting sun shown through a window, and brightly illuminated a yellow cat. All saw the cat clearly as he looked around and then promptly disappeared.

Apparitions take many forms in Tujunga – cars, planes, animals and people. Keep a sharp eye out, and an open mind, when you’re in Tujunga.

Happy Halloween.

  mike lawler