Big Bear History

Efforts continued for years in the dogged hope that the big one would come through. By the turn of the century, however, a new breed of fortune hunter in Big Bear was casting about for a more dependable way to make a living. For the next 40 years new industries were tried, from logging to huge cattle ranches to fox farms.

While the others have faded into memories, the most successful still flourishes today -tourism. The Mother Lode for Big Bear was not a rich vein of gold running under the earth, but the towering pines and crystalline air above it. One might say it's a case of truly not seeing the forest for the trees.

Seeds of tourism were planted in the first quarter of the 20th century, when travel to Big Bear was an arduous two-day journey up the treacherous switchbacks of Clark's Grade. Accommodations were few and rustic, but attracted scores of fisherman and hunters, and growing numbers of adventurous families.

From about 1910 to the mid-1930's the different users of Big Bear co-existed, pursued by a rugged group of pioneers. Their names are remembered today, echoed in places, names and landmarks -Knight, Bartlett, Stillwell, Holloway, Lynn, Talmadge, Shay, Stanfield, Knickerbocker and Baldwin.

Tailings of a Dream
By the 1920's, remains of the mining town of Belleville, which nearly became the county seat 60 years earlier, were already fading remnants searched out only as a curiosity to history buffs. Handfuls of determined miners remained in the hills, as they do today, but the most activity concentrated around Gold Mountain, overlooking Baldwin Lake on the east end of the Valley.

The first mill at the site was built by Elias J. "Lucky Baldwin in 1875 and was destroyed by fire three years later. A second was constructed in 1900 by Capt. J.R. De LaMar, complimented by new steam engine and compressors. The nearby settlement of Bairdstown was re-christened a Doble in honor of Baldwin's son-in-law who struggled to reopen the mine.

By the following year, the mill was operating 24 hours a day and averaging $650 in daily profits. About $20,000 in bullion was sent down the hill in June but in 1903 the mill was closed. Although much mining was going on in the area, Gold Mountain remained for the large part idle.

The property was juggled from owner to owner, each making an effort to revive the mine. Electricity was run to the site in 1921, but the mill operated for the last time just two years later. Guards manned the site for several years after that but in 1927 the mill was abandoned.

The shrinking town of Doble remained inhabited by a few determined prospectors who populated the local pool hall and cabins until he buildings fell into disrepair. The Depression found the huge old mill scrapped for parts.

Remains of the once booming site still stand silent vigil over the valley, but all that is left of Doble is a few shreds of the town's cemetery.

A New Dam
Meanwhile,, on the west end of the valley, emphasis was on a totally different interest.

The original dam, built to provide irrigation to citrus growers in the Redlands area, proved inadequate to the need almost as soon as it was completed in 1884.

To compound the problem, the lake was completely dry during the summers of 1898, 1899, 1900 and 1904. The end result was that a higher dam was needed to provide greater storage abilities, and the Bear Valley Municipal Water Company was former in 1903 to provide an assured water supply to growers down the hill.

One of the first tasks was investigating construction of a new dam. It would be, according to former company manager Horace Hinckley, the fourth dam at the site -the first a temporary eight-foot high mud dam built in 1883 in preparation for the main dam; the second a rubble masonry single arch dam finished in 1884 which actually formed the lake; and the third a rock fill dam started in 1891 and never completed.

After deciding that the dam at Filirea Flats to the south on the other side of the ridge, wouldn't be adequate, the water company awarded a contract to J.S. Eastwood to build a new rock-fill dam with reinforced concrete facing 150 feet downstream from the existing dam. The dam was built in 1910 and 1911.

Eastwood's plans were adequate to take another seven feet of water pressure than was bid, so he was given the go-ahead to do so. The decision, however, resulted in the water company flooding land they didn't own, an embarrassment that took until 1922 to resolve.

Eastwood's plans also called for one-inch diameter steel reinforcing rods in the arches, but no invoices indicate the steel was purchased, and the rods have not been detected through physical testing, leading many to believe they were never included.

The existing multiple arch dam is 15 feet higher than the old structure and doubled the holding capacity of the lake. Construction became a tourist attraction in itself. A popular spot was Castle Rock where workers lived in cabins built for their use. Those cabins later formed Bellow's Lodge.

Blasting would be done during the worker's lunch hour. Bill Knickerbocker, the dam's caretaker from 1906 to 1918, lived in a stone house built in 1890 above the dam to the south. His daughter, Ellen, had memories of her mother hiding her and her sister in the house or behind a large boulder during the blasting. Flying rocks often hit the roof, and one crashed through a window onto little Gertrude Knickerbocker's empty. bed.

The area now covered by Big Bear Lake had been heavily forested, and local lumberman like Clifford Lynn were more than happy to contract to cut down and blast out the unsightly trees peppering the lake. The effort continued for years, with woodcutters venturing out on the ice in the winter to fell the trees, and then returning after the thaw to haul them to Lynn's mill pond by his saw mill at Windy Point by boat. Everyone in town would set their clocks by the mill whistle, blown four times a day, six days a week.

The old dam was a popular fishing spot until the lake filled up several years later, covering it. Location of the 1884 dam is marked by a plaque on the south shore for modern visitors.

Fishermen haven't always been the people stationed by the dam. During World War I, armed guards were stationed at the spot 24 hours a day for the duration of the conflict.

Git Along, Little Doggie
Between the miners to the east and the dam to the west were hundred of acres of lush pasture land, a mecca to cattle ranchers used to the arid desert below.

Four major ranchers brought their herds up to Big Bear around the first of May each year, and drove them back to winter ranges on the Mojave Desert in October or November. While the seeds of a tourist trade were being planted in the village of Pine Knot, rough n' ready cowboys were branding, driving, gathering, camping out, and generally living the romance the West is famous for in the surrounding hills and meadows.

The IS ranch, originally owned by a fellow by the name of Jim Smart, was headquartered in what is now Moonridge, with a beef fattening pasture where the Interlaken Shopping Center stands. Smart, later bought out by the Talmadge brothers, had a branding iron made up with his initials, but when a careless hand dropped it and broke the hook off the "J", he decided to leave well enough alone. The ranch in its day covered a staggering 750,000 acres of Big Bear Valley.

Hundreds of grazing cattle remained a common sight, even on the meadowland exposed by the lake during a dry year, until the grassland became more desirable for human habitation as tourism and the community increased. Concerns grew about the potential harm of overgrazing and the ranches were gradually phased out.

Fox Farms for Fur
At one time during the 1930's as many as 22 fox farms dotted Big Bear Valley, many in lower Moonridge area known not surprisingly as Fox Farm Road.

Big Bear weather, according to aficionados, produced high quality pelts as opposed to warmer southern California climates which could not produce thick enough fur. The absence of disease and parasites that plagued many ranches in other areas was a benefit.

The rush was started by Robert T. Moore who came to Big Bear from Maine. Moore raised a sweepstake-winning silver fox known as Ebony II in 1922, and he spent $200,000 building modern breeding pens where he moved a hundred pair of foxes.

Once the area's reputation was established, live foxes from Big Bear were exported to London and Scandinavia, while pelts were shipped to Europe.

It was a glamorous industry that held great promise, but in the early 1940's the government levied a 20% luxury tax on all furs sold in the country, nearly killing the market.

Stage Coaches, Burros -and Horseless Buggies
The filling of Big Bear Lake did much to bring tourism to the mountains, but the evolution of a reliable transport made the pristine area move valuable to families.

The earliest routes to the valley were from the north through the desert, and stagecoaches during the mining days were often filled to the top with cigars and whiskey for the crusty men seeking their fortune.

The route was -and is- the most accessible during the winter, but one early valley resident recalled a trip in 1919 when heavy mud necessitated unloading the gear from their one-ton truck to make the steeper parts of the road. Some of the articles had to be cached by the side of the road for pick-up later. In all, their trip from Los Angeles used up 59 gallons of gas.

There were 90 people staying in the valley that winter and surviving the weather often meant cooperation. A group went out to meet a bus with a broken axle at the foot of Johnson's Grade and towed the perishable items back the 15 miles into town by toboggan. A woman passenger on the bus was forced to spend the night in an empty shack on the shore of Baldwin Lake.

Horses and pack trains were used for the most common route up Mill Creek, across Santa Ana Canyon and Clark's Grade, which can still be seen from Highway 38 as a series of steep switchbacks (National Forest Service Road 1N54) climbing up and into the town of Pine Knot, now Big Bear Village.

The Shay Brothers opened an automobile stage line in 1913. The following year some car dealers in Los Angeles put an ad in the paper offering a cup to the first car to reach Pine Knot Lodge via Mill Creek Road that spring.

Three cars, each manned by a team of three, took on the challenge. They were free to start whenever they desired, but all determined the weather was just about ideal at the same time. They were met by snow ten feet deep, but after several days of struggling all three made it to Seven Oaks by the Santa Ana River.

The motorists tried repeatedly to reach the summit, with one team member responsible for attaching a rope and block and tackle around an uphill tree.
Another rope was strung through and attached to the front axle, with the other end wound back down around a device on the rear wheel and manned by a second team member. The third man was the driver. With this set-up, the car would slowly be hoisted a few feet toward the tree, and the entire process repeated.

Rain and sleet dampened the contestant's enthusiasm, and once over the top of the ridge all nine men walked the remaining distance to the lodge to grab some food, then raced back to their cars the next morning.. Jack Preston, of Victorville finally won the race, and was presented with hs prize -a $2.50 cup.

Increased traffic in 1915 necessitated turning the thoroughfare into a control road, allowing uphill travelers for two hours, then turning it into a one-way route back to Redlands for the next two hours. In 1914 the 101 mile Rim of the World Highway, or Crest Highway, opened with a less than eight percent climb to the resort town of Pine Knot.

Dancing and Dog Sleds
The lake and the roads worked together to make Big Bear a popular mountain escape for the people of the day. The earliest resorts were started by people like Gus Knight, who opened a camp near where Big Bear Village is today. he emphasized hunting, a popular pastime in the valley where huge mountain lions could still be bagged, and deer and duck were abundant.

Many, like today, came intending to only a visit and found a way to make a living in Big Bear. Charley Holloway first visited the valley in 1914 when he brought pieces of a boat he had built at home in Corona to assemble and try out on the lake. He never got the chance -eager fisherman rented it from him and he went back home to build two more. By the time he was done, he'd built 30 boats and 16 cabins from scrap lumber. Holloway's camp, now Holloway's Marina, was the third camp in the valley. Cabins supported such names as the "Ever Inn," "Always Inn," and the "Izzy Inn." Homer Moore bought the camp from Charley in 1937, later discovering he couldn't live without the camp's cook, Charley's daughter Frances. They were married in 1940.

Nightlife was provided at Stillwell's Camp, where a dance pavilion was opened in 1921. Live bands played during the summer, and during the winter "Old Man Stillwell" would play records and accompany them on the drums to create a dance beat.

High society needs were met by the Moonridge Country Club and Peter Pan Woodland Club, both of which sported a verdant golf course. At Moonridge, golfers occasionally had to compete with grazing cattle and samples of fresh fertilizer they would leave behind. Portions of the golf course remain, but the clubhouse disappeared years ago.

The luxurious Peter Pan was in Big Bear City with the golf course now covered by the tarmac of the airport. A disastrous fire spelled its ruin.

Fishing was a major attraction. A trio of young boys reportedly caught a 592 pound trout in Bear Creek in three hours back in 1892, and others said you needed only a tiny piece of red flannel on a treble hook to start pulling in the fish. For many years visitors were more likely hunting and fishing parties with few women.

As conditions improved, entire families came, some during the week with the father joining them on the weekend. Some names form those days are still around. Fred & Blanche Chadbourne moved to Big Bear a week after they were married and April 23, 1918 to open a restaurant called Chad's Cafe, still in the village.