Three Points, California
| Three Points | |
|---|---|
| Unincorporated community | |
Welcome sign and fire-burned trees (click to enlarge).
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| Coordinates: 34°44′09″N 118°35′55″W / 34.7358155°N 118.5986976°WCoordinates: 34°44′09″N 118°35′55″W / 34.7358155°N 118.5986976°W | |
| Country |  United States of America |
| State |
 California
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| County |
 Los Angeles
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| Time zone | Pacific (UTC-8) |
| • Summer (DST) | Pacific Daylight Time (UTC-7) |
| ZIP code | 93532, served by Lake Hughes |
| Area code(s) | 661 |
Three Points is a scenic, sparsely populated settlement at the northwestern edge of Los Angeles County in the western Antelope Valley. It is on the northern edge of the Angeles National Forest, on the east side of Oakgrove Canyon where it opens out into Pine Canyon, 17.5 miles (28 km) north of Castaic.
A roadside welcome sign said in 1991 that the Three Points population was 150. In 2008 a newer sign gave the population as 200.
Three Points was homesteaded in 1892 by the Lafferty family, 83-year-old Laura May Lafferty told a reporter in 1991. Her grandmother acted as a midwife, and her father, Ben Cherbbono, was a French Canadian muleskinner who led a team that helped grade the Ridge Route highway in the early part of the 20th century. Gookins Lake in the area was named after her mother’s family, she said.
In those days, Three Points was graced with a one-room schoolhouse, Pine Canyon School, where in 1953 Mrs. Lillie Knighton taught children aged 6 to 14; in midwinter, a “huge pot-bellied stove . . . hissed with heat.” The school also acted as a community center; movies related to classwork were shown each Thursday night, open to adults.
Apart from the school, a tavern variously called the Three Point Cafe, Maxine’s, and Nancy’s Up the Road Cafe, was another center of social life. Bert Gookins was the first owner and builder — sometime in 1912, or maybe 1924, Bert Hart, Gookins’ grandson, recalled. It was a grocery store once, Hart said, and perhaps the restaurant and bar were added in the 1930s or 1940s. The building was occasionally occupied by a traveling dentist who used a foot-powered drill.
Michael and Anita Felix bought the cafe in 1984 with the idea of using its park-like grounds for special events. Two years later, Anita had a heart attack and so the Felixes began leasing it to other operators. When Maxine Martin had it in 1991 it was a combination bar, restaurant, social club and video-rental store featuring a decor that included
a jukebox, animal traps, rattlesnake skins, guns, old photographs, dollar bills pinned to the wall, a bottle of pickled pig feet and a sign that says “All tabs must be paid by the end of the month.”
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Wikipedia