Security Guard in Canyon Country, CA

The area was the ancestral homeland of the Tataviam people for over five hundred years, and other tribes before then, such as the Tongva, Kitanemuk, and Serrano people. After Spanish settlement, the valley became grazing lands of the Mission San Fernando Rey de España around 1790. In 1834, after Mexican independence, it became part of the Rancho San Francisco land grant centered on the confluence of the Santa Clara River and Castaic Creek.

In the 1880s, the rancho become the Newhall Ranch empire of Henry Newhall, from which is family started the Newhall Land and Farming Company after his death. In 1928, the St. Francis Dam collapsed, suddenly flooding and washing away settlements and people along the Santa Clara River section of present-day Santa Clarita not including Canyon Country. Canyon Country was originally to be called Solemint. It later absorbed the community to the west called Honby. In the 1960s and 1970s, the Newhall Land company’s suburban developments transformed Canyon Country and the surrounding towns into a largely residential city.

In 1987, Canyon Country was one of four communities, along with Valencia, Newhall, and Saugus, that merged to create the city of Santa Clarita, California.