1960s postcard of the Ramona Chapel at Callahan's Old West Trading Post.

Back of postcard reads:

Indian Theatre and Village Museum
136-60 Sierra Highway
Mint Canyon, Saugus, Calif.
Ramona Chapel — Contains eight 2-seat pews — 48 solid brass candelabras donated by Carrie Jacobs Bond, composer of "I Love You Truly," "End of a Perfect Day," etc. — with ancient alter — musical playback. Replica of Boot Hill, Tombstone, Arizona, adjoins chapel. Robt. E. Callahan, famous author, spent years collecting and assembly the articles in the chapel.
Color Photo by: Louis & Virginia Kay
H3590 Columbia Wholesale Supply, 11401 Chandler, North Hollywood, Calif. | Published & Distributed by Columbia.

We don't know where he got it, but author and Western buff Robert E. Callahan (b. Oct. 27. 1892) acquired this little chapel and displayed it at his 1926 Ramona Village in Los Angeles. He named this structure the Ramona Chapel in keeping with the theme. When the Santa Monica Freeway was about to cut through his property in the early 1960s he move the chapel and some of the other buildings he'd collected to Mint Canyon along Sierra Highway north of Davenport Road, where he erected an Old West Trading Post as a tourist trap.

After Callahan's death on January 10, 1981, his wideo Marion donated the chapel and other items to the Santa Clarita Valley Historical Society. Today the chapel can be visited in Heritage Junction in Hart Park.

Robert E. Callahan's Old West Trading Post, aka Indian Village, at 13660 Sierra Highway in "Outlaw Canyon" was the equivalent of an amusement park of its day.

Callahan (b. Oct. 27, 1892; d. Jan. 10, 1981), an entertainer and novelist, exploited America's fascination with all things Western — especially the romanticized notions of Old California as presented by Helen Hunt Jackson in her seminal 1884 novel, "Ramona" — by collecting objects with a connection, real or imagined, to the novelist and her work, and enticing the public to experience them.

Callahan's initial visions of creating an amusement park to be called Ramona Village morphed into the Mission Village Auto Court, which he opened in 1926 at 5675 W. Washington Blvd. in Culver City. Along with a themed hotel, he erected teepees for travelers and put his collections on display, including a chapel, little red schoolhouse and kiva (a small sweat lodge).

Auto parks were big business as the automobile came into age in the 1920s. There were a few auto parks in the Santa Clarita Valley, most notably McIntyre's camp at Castaic Junction, which was wiped out in the 1928 St. Francis Dam disaster.

In time, L.A. city builders had a different vision for Callahan's Culver City property. By the early 1960s, Mission Village stood in the way of the coming I-10 Santa Monica Freeway. So in 1962 Callahan closed Mission Village and moved it to 13660 Sierra Highway. (The freeway was completed in 1965).

Note: In Callahan's day, that part of Sierra Highway was known as Saugus. The county of Los Angeles later included it within the Acton-Agua Dulce Town Council's sphere of influence. It is commonly considered part of Agua Dulce today.

In 1987, Callahan's widow, Marion, donated several artifacts from the former Indian Village — including the Ramona Chapel and little red schoolhouse — to the Santa Clarita Valley Historical Society.

The main building remained on the property, and from From 1986-2000, Marion Callahan leased it to the Canyon Theatre Guild. In 2000 the CTG moved back to downtown Newhall where the community theatre had started.