On Monday, August 24, 2026, at 2:54 AM, a fire tore through one of the most visited, prized, and historic blocks in Old Town Newhall, California, taking several small businesses with it. This is a neighbor-run fundraiser. 100% of the net proceeds are split equally between The Main, Newhall Refinery, and Care Tucker.
Good news — your shirt is here
Your shirt is in and waiting for you. No appointment and no rush — any of the three Santa Clarita Valley farmers markets below works, on any day they're open, whichever is easiest for you. That's where pickup has been set up all along, so if you've been wondering where to go, this is the place. Collecting in person is our favorite part of this whole fundraiser, because it means getting to say thank you face to face.
Old Town Newhall Farmers Market
24500 Main Street, Newhall CA 91321
Canyon Country Farmers Market
18410 Sierra Highway, Canyon Country CA 91351
Valencia FivePoint Farmers Market
27426 Navigation Avenue, Valencia CA 91381
Just walk up and tell us your name — we have your order and we'll find your shirts for you. No receipt, no ID, nothing to bring. And if none of these days work for you, call 661-253-4300 and we'll happily sort something out.
The final result
The net proceeds were $10,756.54, and each business gets an equal share — $3,585.51 each to The Main, Newhall Refinery, and Care Tucker.
Historic theater · Live performance
The stage for Santa Clarita's theater kids, drama clubs, comedians and community productions. Tens of thousands of dollars in lighting, sound, props and rented equipment were lost, along with the room itself.
Restaurant · Neighborhood staple
A Main Street institution and gathering place for birthdays, first dates and after-show dinners. Everything inside was lost, and its staff is suddenly without work.
Boutique · Small-town Main Street shop
The kind of independent boutique a Main Street is built around. Inventory, fixtures and years of work were lost in a single night.
More about the district and its merchants at oldtownnewhall.com.
The incident occurred on Monday, August 24, 2026. The fire was first reported at 2:54 AM. A link to the full story is below.
Old Town Newhall is the hub of the Santa Clarita Valley. It's where residents come out for city-sponsored events, nonprofit fundraisers, farmers markets and street festivals, and where people go simply for the Old Town feel they love.
The fire hit a historic block on Main Street and destroyed several of the businesses inside it. Hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage. Hundreds of employees suddenly without a job. Performers with no stage.
The community here is second to none. So a few neighbors printed a shirt, built this page, and are handing every dollar to the three businesses that lost the most.
Newhall Refinery, probably 1944. The men in the middle of the image are looking at something that has exploded (which was not terribly uncommon), and the white tank has fallen over. The graphic is made from two side-by-side prints from the same vantage point, combined into a panorama. Not two halves of the same image, because the position of the men is slightly different. The photographs were donated to the SCV Historical Society in March 2003 by Rita Rippe.
Not to be confused with the much earlier Pioneer Oil Refinery at a different location in Newhall, the Newhall Refinery started in 1930, according to A.B. Perkins, and sat just west of Sierra Highway at what is now 22674 N. Clampitt Road, immediately north of Beale's Cut, which is actually under the same ownership as the refinery property.
According to SCV oil historian Stan Walker, the Newhall Refinery was built in 1930 by the William P. Andrews Oil Company. Construction started in April 1930, and it began operations in July. To run the refinery, company president William P. Andrews started the Andrews Refining Company. The refinery had a full capacity of 2,000 barrels of oil per day. In 1933, Joseph Otto Moffett (1890-1964), an officer of the William P. Andrews Oil Company and future mayor of San Fernando, bought the refinery and changed the refining company name to the San Fernando Refining Company. According to Walker (as is much of the following information), William D. Parks was the general superintendent of the refinery and Ed Ericson was its purchasing agent.
In 1933 the refinery distributed 756,801.9 gallons of oil (21,640 barrels); by 1938 its annual output was 3,500,000 gallons (~100,000 bbl); and in 1939 it served 69 service stations in California only and owned five trucks and leased eight more.
In 1942 the refinery was purchased by its employees, Parks and Ericson, who organized the Newhall Refining Co. with a business office on Spruce Street, phone number 355. Today the address of the same building is 24331 Main Street. Walker writes that the new company "became an important local employer." Ownership records state that the owners were William Delaney Parks (1903-1963), Ivalee Parks (his wife, 1901-1991), Edward Arthur Ericson (1895-1979), and Vena Ericson (his wife, 1896-1988). According to a Daily News article of Aug. 29, 1989, Parks used his own and his wife's life savings. The refinery could process 3,500 barrels per day at full capacity. Twenty men worked there. One of them was Donald A. Shaffer (1906-1990), who was hired as a truck driver just prior to World War II and returned to work after the war under new owners.
The operations were not without their accidents. Walker writes: "On August 12, 1944, fire demolished the Newhall Refinery. A laboratory flame ignited fumes from a burst naphtha line and in seconds, a 10,000-gallon tank of naphtha blew up. Flames shot nearly 2,000 feet into the sky and storage tanks exploded. James Breckenridge died in the hospital from burns suffered in the first explosion, and William Taylor was seriously burned while dragging Breckenridge from the flames. Flames and heat from the burning tank ignited others, and one by one, tanks began blowing up. At one time, 18 of the 25 tanks were burning."
Your shirt is in and waiting for you. Come by any day the three Santa Clarita Valley farmers markets are open, tell us your name, and we'll find your shirts for you. Nothing is shipped — pickup has been set up at the markets from the very beginning, and we would love to hand your shirt to you in person.
This is what Main Street looked like: the storefronts, the marquee, the art on the walls inside.
This effort was put together by neighbors and local businesses who stepped up for Main Street.
The Signal of Santa Clarita and The Buzz Network have graciously offered $10,000 in free advertising to these businesses, to use for whatever they need: spreading the word about a rebuild, a temporary location, or a new venture, so they can get up and running once they decide on their next step.
