1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/San Bernardino

SAN BERNARDINO, a city and the county-seat of San Bernardino county, California, U.S.A., about 60 m. E. of Los Angeles. Pop. (1900) 6150 (873 foreign-born); (1910) 12,779. It is served by the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fé, the Southern Pacific and the San Pedro, Los Angeles & Salt Lake railways, and by an interurban electric line. The city is situated in a valley at an altitude of about 1050 ft., at the S. base of the San Bernardino mountain range and 20 m. W. of San Bernardino mountain (11,600 ft.). Among the public buildings are a Carnegie library (1903, the library was established in 1891), with 10,000 volumes in 1909, and the county court house. There are two public parks, Lugo, near the centre of the city, and Meadowbrook, on the E. outskirts. San Bernardino is one of several places (Redlands, Highland, Rialto, Colton, Bloomington, Riverside, Pomona) that lie near together in part of the citrus fruit, alfalfa and grain region of S. California. The Santa Fé railway has extensive repair and construction shops here. San Bernardino is popularly known as the “Gate City of Southern California.” Five miles N. of the city, and connected with it by electric railway, at the base of a mountain on whose side is a great blaze shaped like an arrow-head, are the Arrowhead Hot Springs (196° F.), resembling the Carlsbad waters; the hotel at the Springs is heated by their waters. Other hot springs near San Bernardino are the Urbita, 1¼ m. S., and the Harlem, 4 m. N.E. About 1822 Spanish missionaries settled about 5 m. from the site of the present city and called their mission San Bernardino (from St Bernardin of Siena). In 1851 the Mormons established here a colony, which was abandoned in 1857. The county was organized in 1853 with the county-seat at San Bernardino, which was incorporated as a town in 1854. It was deprived of its charter in 1861, but received a new one in 1864. The Southern Pacific in 1876 gave the city connexion with the ocean, and the Santa Fé in 1885 connected it with the East. Under a state enactment in 1905 San Bernardino adopted a new charter which provides for the “recall” by petition, the initiative and the referendum.