About Big Bear Lake

� The Serrano People — Original Inhabitants

Long before European contact, the Big Bear Valley was home to the Yuhaaviatam, a clan of the Serrano people (Maara'yam). They called the valley "Yuhaaviat" — meaning "Pine Place" — and inhabited the San Bernardino Mountains for approximately 2,000–2,500 years. Their settlement was seasonal: they used the valley during warmer months for hunting deer, gathering piñon nuts, acorns, berries, and tubers, then migrated to lower elevations during winter.

The Serrano held the grizzly bear as sacred — a "great grandfather" figure. Bears were never hunted, their meat never eaten, their fur never worn. One of the most significant sites is Aapahunane't ("God's Eye"), a massive snow quartz megalith near Baldwin Lake, believed to be the eye of the Creator, Kü̱ktac. The modern San Manuel Band of Mission Indians are direct descendants of the Yuhaaviatam clan, named for their leader Paakuma (Santos Manuel).

🏔️ The Naming of Big Bear (1845)

In 1845, Benjamin Davis Wilson ("Don Benito") — grandfather of General George S. Patton — led a posse of 20–22 men into the mountains to recover horses stolen by local tribesmen. Upon entering the valley, Wilson's party found a landscape "crawling with grizzly bears." They lassoed 11 bears on arrival and another 11 on the return, killing 22 grizzlies total. Wilson named the area "Big Bear Valley."

The body of water Wilson originally named "Bear Lake" was not today's reservoir but a natural marshy area at the east end of the valley, now known as Baldwin Lake. The California Grizzly Bear was hunted to extinction in the region by the early 1900s; today's bears are descendants of black bears introduced in the 1930s.

💧 The Dam & The Lake

Big Bear Lake is entirely man-made, created for irrigation of the citrus groves of Redlands. In 1883, the Bear Valley Land and Water Company formed after engineer Frank E. Brown identified the valley as an ideal reservoir. The first single-arch granite dam was completed in 1884 at a cost of ~$75,000, creating what was then the largest man-made lake in the world — dubbed the "Eighth Wonder of the World." It held 25,000 acre-feet of water.

The current multiple-arch concrete dam was built 300 feet downstream between 1910–1912, standing 20 feet higher and nearly tripling capacity to ~73,000 acre-feet. The original 1884 dam remains submerged beneath the lake, visible only when water levels are exceptionally low.

⛷️ Skiing Comes to Big Bear

Winter sports arrived in 1925, but the modern ski industry began with Snow Summit opening in 1952 (founded by Tommi Tyndall) and Bear Mountain (originally Moonridge Ski Area) in 1969. Big Bear's resorts have been pioneers:

• • Mid-1980s: Snow Summit built North America's first in-ground halfpipe
• • 1992: Bear Mountain introduced "Outlaw" — first freestyle terrain park in North America
• • 1997: Inaugural Winter X Games hosted at Snow Summit
• • 2002: Snow Summit purchased Bear Mountain → Big Bear Mountain Resorts (BBMR)
• • 2014: Acquired by Mammoth Resorts → 2017: Alterra Mountain Company → Ikon Pass
• • 2023: BBMR expanded with purchase of Snow Valley in Running Springs

⛏️ The Holcomb Valley Gold Rush (1860)

On May 4, 1860, prospector William "Bill" Holcomb tracked a wounded grizzly bear over a ridge north of the Big Bear basin into a hidden valley. While resting, he noticed gold-laced quartz — sparking Southern California's largest gold rush.

By September 1860, the boomtown of Belleville (named after Belle Van Dusen, the blacksmith's daughter) housed thousands of residents — rivaling San Bernardino in population. The town had saloons, gambling halls, and the "Octagon House" dance hall, but also extreme lawlessness. "Hangman's Tree" — a juniper still standing in Holcomb Valley — served as a site for vigilante justice.

Belleville nearly became the San Bernardino County seat in the 1861 election, losing by a narrow margin after a mysterious bonfire destroyed several ballot boxes. Mining evolved from placer panning to quartz mining with heavy stamp mills. In 1873, Elias J. "Lucky" Baldwin launched a "second gold rush" with his Gold Mountain Mining Company and a massive 40-stamp mill near Baldwin Lake.

Today you can visit Holcomb Valley via the "Gold Fever Trail" — a self-guided tour of historic markers, crumbling stone structures, and the remnants of a wild-west ghost town.

🪵 The Lumber Industry (1870s–1900s)

Mining and agriculture in the valleys below created massive lumber demand. Logging began in the 1850s to supply Mormon settlers in San Bernardino, using unregulated clear-cut methods that stripped native ponderosa and Jeffrey pine forests.

The Brookings Lumber Company (Michigan-based) operated one of the largest mills near Running Springs from 1901–1911, using a specialized railroad to haul logs up the City Creek Toll Road (now Highway 330). They delivered approximately 10 million board feet of lumber annually. This devastation eventually spurred conservation movements, leading President Theodore Roosevelt to expand the Forest Reserve system — creating what became the San Bernardino National Forest.