Cuddy Valley is a valley in the San Andreas Rift Zone south of the San Emigdio Mountains west of Tejon Pass, part of the Mountain Communities.

[1] What is now the Cuddy Valley was a water and grazing place along El Camino Viejo (18th-19th century).

At the foot of the mountains and at the creek's mouth was the next stop, that became the 1842 Mexican land grant of Rancho San Emidio.

Cuddy eventually built a log cabin west of the fort in the small valley just southwest of modern Lake of the Woods, and laid claim to land in what became known at the time as Cuddy's Valley, (later Little Cuddy Valley), and raised cattle there.

John Cuddy married Margaret Gale in 1858 and by 1861 had moved his family into a larger log cabin that still stands, west of the present community of Lake of the Woods.