A Brief History of Big Bear Lake
The Valley Before the Visitors
Big Bear Valley was home to the Serrano people for over 2,000 years before European explorers arrived. The valley sits at 6,752 feet in the San Bernardino Mountains, surrounded by pine forest and fed by snowmelt. The grizzly bears that gave the area its name were common enough that Benjamin Wilson, who led one of the first American expeditions through in 1845, named the lake after them. The last grizzly in the region was spotted in 1908.
Gold Rush and Early Growth
The Southern California gold rush of 1861 brought a wave of prospectors into the valley. Mining camps appeared quickly, and the population grew faster than the infrastructure could support. A trip from San Bernardino to Big Bear took two days by horse-drawn coach. That changed when Kirk Phillips, inspired by the world's first bus line in New York, launched a motor bus service from San Bernardino to Big Bear Valley, making it the first mountain recreation area in Southern California.
Hollywood Discovers the Mountain
By the 1920s, Big Bear had become a resort destination. Emile Jesserun built the Pan Hot Springs Hotel in 1921, and by 1924 the valley had 44 resorts drawing a steady stream of visitors, including Cecil B. DeMille, Shirley Temple, and Ginger Rogers. Hollywood's film industry followed. Universal Studios shot here as early as 1915, and the mountain has since appeared in Gone with the Wind, Old Yeller, WarGames, and Better Off Dead, among many others.
Skiing Takes Hold
The first ski jump in Big Bear was built in 1929 and immediately set a world record. Winter sports grew steadily from there. In 1952, Tommy Tyndall opened a ski resort that would become Snow Summit, now one of the most popular ski destinations in Southern California and part of the Big Bear Mountain Resorts portfolio under Alterra Mountain Company.
In 1933, the California Fish and Game Commission released around 27 black bears from Yosemite into the area. They have been a fixture of Big Bear life ever since, occasionally wandering into residential neighborhoods.
The Modern Mountain Town
Big Bear Lake was incorporated as a city on November 28, 1980. Since 1970 it has hosted an annual Oktoberfest, the highest-elevation beer garden in the United States. In the 1990s it became a training ground for world-class boxers including Oscar De La Hoya, Mike Tyson, and Gennady Golovkin.
Today the valley draws over 100,000 visitors on busy weekends, with a permanent population of around 5,000. The San Bernardino National Forest surrounds it on all sides. The lake is still there, the pines are still there, and the mountain still earns its keep across all four seasons.
