Old Highway 395, Part 15: US 395/US 91 to Colton and San Bernardino, US 70/99 and US 66 via La Cadena Drive and Mount Vernon Avenue (1934-1959)

Having crossed the county line into San Bernardino county, in this portion of our photoessay we travel through Colton as well as through San Bernardino proper. The county seat of San Bernardino county with a population of nearly 200,000 (2005), San Bernardino was founded in 1810 with its own Spanish mission established by Fr. Francisco Dumetz. Dumetz named the mission and the region's majestic snowcapped peak for St. Bernardine of Siena, whose feast day was 20 May (the day Dumetz established the mission); Saint Bernardine remains the patron saint of the local diocese, and one of the major regional hospitals is also named for him. With the decomissioning of the missions by Mexican Governor Figueroa in 1834 (see Part 2 and the San Diego Mission), the region largely lapsed into ranching and was divvied up amongst multiple rancho owners until the cessation of the region to the United States after the Mexican-American wars. By then, several hundred Mormons under the lead of Captain Andrew Lytle (hence modern Lytle Creek), Amasa Lyman and Charles Rich had emigrated from Salt Lake City to the Santa Ana River valley in 1851, establishing Fort San Bernardino and expanding out to farm the region. Colonel Henry Washington established a survey point on Mt. San Bernardino in 1852 and from that base line (remembered in the city's Base Line St; surveys today are still made based on his monument) the city was platted and incorporated in 1854. Like the future Riverside to the south, the temperance-minded population tolerated no booze (Part 13), and it is likely that some of the population lived in what would become Riverside later. Their trek partially came down what is the Cajon Pass now, and this major crossing is the chief topic of Part 18 along with a little more on their story.

Brigham Young recalled the Mormons home to Zion in 1857 (a theme we will see again on mainline US 395 in Nevada), but unlike many faithful who moved back to Utah at great financial cost, some rebelled against his order and refused to return. A thriving city grew out of the remnant and a large civic network was established. This gentle town was thrown into chaos, however, when prospector William F. Holcomb struck gold in a nearby valley just north of what is now Big Bear Lake and filed five gold claims in the valley he named after himself in 1860. Thus was spawned the boomtown of Belleville and the biggest gold find ever in Southern California; word got out incredibly fast and a much rougher type of settler emerged in fierce contrast to the upstanding inhabitants of San Bernardino, causing much internal dispute and squabble (and even nearly losing the county seat to Belleville, prevailing by only one vote). Gold fever lasted only around a year before the yield plummeted and Belleville and the Holcomb Valley lapsed back into obscurity, but some of the new invaders stayed put as well and the region slowly started to expand once again. As San Bernardino's mining days faded, the railroad entered the valley and made San Bernardino the hub for no less than three networks, including the Santa Fe, the Union Pacific and the Southern Pacific Railroads. Immense local development caused the population to double in less than a decade in the early years of the 20th century. Today, San Bernardino is a victim of much of this expansion's abandonment which left distinct sections blighted and decrepit. Major civic redevelopment is at work to improve its image and lifestyle, much of this visible on the city's southern end.

One of the beneficiaries of the railroad expansion was the first city we will reach; Colton was incorporated in 1887 and named for David Doulty Colton, a general during the Civil War and later president of the Southern Pacific Railroad. During its early days it was presided over by Sheriff Virgil Earp (right), of the famous Earp family that together with Doc Holliday shot and killed Frank McLaury, Tom McLaury and Billy Clanton in the famous Gunfight at the OK Corral, in Tombstone, AZ on 26 October 1881. Before he moved to Colton, Virgil had been the Chief of Police of Tombstone and a federal Deputy Marshall for the Arizona Territory, organizing his famous faction in the Gunfight after a complex series of events including illegal arms possession and a long standing feud (see the excellent Wikipedia article). Contrary to popular legend, Virgil Earp was the most experienced of his family despite his brother Wyatt Earp's reputation, and brothers Wyatt and Morgan were specifically deputized for the occasion. Virgil was shot in the leg during the course of the Gunfight, crippling him, and his reputation was soiled by the Gunfight despite his official exoneration. The victims' family members vowed revenge, and nearly got it: he was attacked again in December at a hotel he was using as a safehouse, further robbing him of the use of his left arm, and Virgil finally left for California the following spring to rejoin his parents who had settled in Colton; even that trip was fraught with peril and his bodyguards killed another would-be assassin as he was boarding a train.

Despite having only one good arm, Virgil's reputation led to his hire by the Southern Pacific Railroad in 1882, on whose behalf Virgil tried unsuccessfully to stop the entry of the California Southern Railroad (Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad) into western California literally over the SPRR tracks, but failed when Governor Robert Waterman (the Waterman in "Waterman Avenue") sent a posse down in 1883 to ensure the crossing's construction by force and the great SPRR monopoly finally fell apart. Its advantageous location made the town a local transport hub and even today sizeable railroad traffic continues to pass over its ties. Earp became constable in 1886 and city-marshal in 1887 after Colton was incorporated, but only lasted a year after which he moved to San Bernardino and then to Colorado. Returning in 1894, he tried to open a saloon but was thwarted by the still-enforced temperance laws and finally moved to Goldfield, NV where he became deputy sheriff for Esmeralda county in 1905 and finally succumbed to pneumonia the same year. After his death and the rise of the automobile, Colton's pre-eminence as a junction point was cemented further as the great US 91/US 395/US 70/US 99 junction was in downtown Colton until the early 1960s, which we will look at in this Part. Today its population numbers 47,662 [2000].

San Bernardino county, by the way, is the continental United States' largest true county (only North Slope Borough, AK is larger if one counts Alaska) at some 20,000 square miles, bigger than some states. Despite its large size, its population numbers a comparably sparse 1.7 million [2000]. It was established as a cast-off portion of Los Angeles county in 1853; part of its southern half became Riverside county in 1893.

Click the thumbnail at right to open a new window with a scrolling map showing Riverside and San Bernardino in 1947, 1957, 1963, 1969, 1974, 1977, 1984 and 1999.

In this section we focus particularly on the old La Cadena Drive alignment, the continuation of the 1949 La Cadena Freeway (Part 14) that was constructed in its initial form from 1935 to 1939, which served as the roadbed of CA 18, then US 395 and finally US 91 until the construction of the corresponding segment of the Riverside Fwy in 1959. As we mentioned in Part 14, the southernmost section of La Cadena is now under or incorporated into the southbound lanes of I-215, but an independent section north of there still survives into Colton. There are several distinct alignments of US 395 in Colton and we will look at all of them in turn, save for the US 395 freeway which will be addressed separately in Part 17. All of this section was originally cosigned with CA 18 (until around 1961), and after US 91 was extended south from Barstow in 1947, with that route as well.

We also have two major US highway junctions in this part, namely US 70/US 99 in Colton (but see Part 13 for a footnote about US 70's original routing in California), and grand old US 66 in San Bernardino, US 91/US 395's junction with which being where we end this Part. US 66 is of course the famous "Mother Route" from Los Angeles to Chicago, a/k/a Route 66 (as in "Get your kicks on"), the Main Street of America, the Mother Road, the Will Rogers Highway and west of St. Louis, MO, the National Old Trails Highway; it was an original 1926 highway and the US highway everyone has heard of and everyone has probably driven some section of at least once, even though California was the first to chop it down in 1964 with the Great Renumbering (eliminating it legislatively from the state after which signs completely disappeared by the late 1970s), and it was later nationally decommissioned completely in 1985. In California, part of US 66 remains state highway as CA 66 and the eastern terminus is at modern I-215 in downtown San Bernardino, shown in the picture above, and San Bernardino makes big hay out of its US 66 connection to the point of it even being on the police cars.

If I might be permitted the pontification, US 66 is a route I have many conflicted emotions about: it is not a highway particularly relevant to me as it was already long dead in California when I was a lad, so I have no especial attachment to it, and the fanatical devotion its boosters maintain is actually detrimental to the other routes it shared road with as US 66 is frequently the major or even the only route to retain historic status. This is especially relevant to our study here considering the large amount of territory it shared with US 91 and to a lesser extent with US 395 all the way to modern US 395 in Part 18, but as of this writing the only Historic Route signage that remains on that entire section is for US 66 and it seems unlikely this will ever change. On the other hand, US 66 was the first route to really launch the American consciousness back in time to remember the old highways in the age of the Interstate, and the current retro-push to resurrect the old routes owes a tremendous debt to the supporters of US 66. Moreover, US 66's ubiquitous presence in American culture has made a hobby like mine not merely a perverse geek obsession but a respected, fascinating and (dare I say) "cool" pursuit of the past. US 66 may be just another interesting highway to me, but it did forge the trail for us younger generation roadgeeks who follow now, so I do owe it that level of respect. There are many US 66 historians who have covered the highway in more painstaking, loving detail than I could ever hope to do here, so I leave you with the Great American Highway photo tour, along with the National Historic Route 66 Federation.