By RHEA-FRANCES TETLEY
Historian
The Green Valley Tollhouse and Hotel was built by Bear Valley Wagon Toll Road builders Gus Knight Jr. and brother-in-law J.R. Metcalf. They hired George and Demaris Tillitt in 1903 to operate the tollhouse and maintain the dirt road from the last snow to first snow each season. The family lived on a ranch in Highland during the winters, while their three kids attended school.
Green Valley Lake dam under construction.
The Tillitts ran the toll house from 1903 until 1911, when San Bernardino County purchased the toll road for $4,000 to transform it into a free public roadway for future automobile traffic. Most of the Bear Valley Wagon Toll Road became a part of the free 101-mile Rim of the World Drive, opening in 1915. George Tillitt was commissioned by the county to regrade and maintain the surface of the dirt Snowslide Road, keeping it suitable for wagon or automobile traffic.
In some spots along Snowslide Road the grade was rather steep. When an auto overheated, the driver would stop the car and place rocks behind their wheels so it would not roll backward. These rocks also helped stabilize the autos when they restarted uphill again. It became George Tillitt’s youngest son Morton’s job to relocate those rocks so an auto accident wouldn’t result from hitting the rocks.
The Tillitt family purchased the former tollhouse, remodeling it into a hotel and restaurant for travelers and building a general store and a gas station/garage across the road from the restaurant. Sometimes, over 75 tourists would stop by for Mother Tillitt’s Sunday dinner. In 1919, the Tillitts homesteaded 20 acres next to the tollhouse.
Snowslide Road remained a section of Rim of the World Drive until 1923 when a shorter, southern route called the Deep Creek Cutoff (aka the Arctic Circle) was cut into the steep southern-facing hillsides to the Big Bear Dam. The road then went along the west shore to Fawnskin, greatly reducing the traffic volume on the old, difficult Snowslide Road through Green Valley. Then, when the 1924 bridge over the Bear Lake Dam was built, automobile traffic to Green Valley essentially stopped.
The Top of the World clubhouse with some of the club’s members.
Harry McMullen, aka Green Valley Mac, was a packhorse, fishing excursion guide, operating out of Green Valley. He took enthusiastic fishermen out to great backcountry fishing holes, often camping for weeks. GV Mac believed creating a lake would be easy by building a dam across Green Valley Creek on the valley’s western edge.
In 1924, GV Mac decided that Green Valley should become a complete fishing resort, replacing Lake Arrowhead, which had just gone private, discouraging all public fishing. He purchased all the cheap, available Green Valley land and went to the DeWitt-Blair Company, a Los Angeles land development company. GV Mac sold them on his lake plan and then he sold them his land.
The Dewitt-Blair Company borrowed $85,000 from Union Bank and started constructing the dam in 1925 (100 years ago) to create an 11-acre lake, building roads, installing water lines and began selling $150 subdivided lots.
When the cement, multiple-arch dam was completed in 1926, and water collected behind the dam, the area’s name was changed to Green Valley Lake (GVL). The “Top o’ the World Club” was built exclusively for GVL property owners, allowing only club members to fish in the new trout-stocked lake, to encourage property sales.
Green Valley Lake is a four-season area at the 7,200-foot elevation (higher than Big Bear Lake). Green Valley Mac, using an “old fisherman persona” with awful spelling and grammar, promoted the area successfully by writing humorous articles in the “Green Valley News” about how healthful and beautiful GVL was, attracting vacationers and new property owners. The Tilletts successfully subdivided their land, too, selling lots for vacation cabins in their upper end of Green Valley.
Residents and visitors were welcomed warmly to Green Valley.
0 Comments