Surveyor General of California and Nevada. Beale challenged General Pico's loyalty to the new president and in 1863, Beale was awarded the right to collect the toll in the pass. Beale maintained rights to the cut for the next twenty years and so it became known as "Beale's Cut." Beale's Cut was eventually deepened to . It lasted as a transportation passage in the neighborhood of present-day Newhall Pass until construction of the Newhall Tunnel was completed in 1910. Beale's Cut appeared in many silent western movies. The location became a favorite of movie producers like John Ford and D. W. Griffith. In Ford's 1923 film Three Jumps Ahead, American cowboy star Tom Mix is filmed jumping over the pass, although it has been widely debated among film historians whether Mix himself made the jump, with any of a number of stuntmen claiming credit for it while some experts believe the jump was achieved purely through special effects. John Ford used the location in at least four films over a twenty-year period beginning as early as 1917. Still in existence today, it is no longer passable by automobiles. It suffered a partial collapse during the Northridge Earthquake, on January 17, 1994, and now is about deep. It is visible from the Sierra Highway about one mile north from the intersection of The Old Road and Sierra Highway, just after the first bridge under SR 14. It lies between Sierra Highway and the new freeway, about a quarter mile to the northeast of a stone marker. Beale's Cut is difficult to find today because it is fenced off and not close enough to the Sierra Highway to be easily seen. Newhall Pass In 1910, the Newhall Auto Tunnel was built a quarter-mile northwest of Beale's Cut. However, two-way traffic through the tunnel was slow because it was only wide. The California Division of Highways decided to replace the tunnel. In July 1938, work started to remove the rock above the tunnel to create a four-lane highway. The road was first known as Highway 6, then Highway 14, and finally the present-day Sierra Highway. The cut for the tunnel is located to the west of today's Highway 14. The pass is named after the local businessman Henry Newhall, whose land holdings formed the basis of the city of Santa Clarita. Newhall came to California from Saugus, Massachusetts during the California Gold Rush