By RHEA-FRANCES TETLEY
Historian
The official dedication of the 101-mile Rim of the World Drive occurred on Sunday, July 18, 1915 – 110 years ago. The dedication ceremony took place below Strawberry Peak in Pinecrest’s South Park. The event was attended by 101 dignitaries including County Supervisor George Butler, Dr. John Baylis, Commissioners Kincade and Horton, Road Commissioner Lothrop and representatives and reporters from 125 newspapers and magazines for nationwide publicity.
Remembered at the ceremony was the late Kirk Phillips, who had pioneered the first use of “auto stages” transporting passengers from San Bernardino up to the mountain resorts beginning in 1912, giving anyone a faster and easier access to the mountain than by horse-drawn wagons, shortly after the county ban on motorized vehicles was lifted.
A 1926 map of the Rim of the World Drive, which opened in 1915, as displayed in the Mountain History Museum.
There was no agreement on what to call the new mountain roadway. The county received more than 300 suggestions and “The San Bernardino Mountain Crest Highway” didn’t exactly roll easily off the tongue.
Few used that formal name, so Dr. Baylis, owner of Pinecrest Resort, who had led the movement to open the roadway to motorized traffic, came to the rescue, adapting his description of the area, which he called “The Rim of the World.”
California’s Poet Laureate John S. McGroarty gave the principal speech during the 1915 dedication ceremony. Here is an excerpt from his speech:
My brothers, the honor of dedicating this century-mile road on the rim of the world has fallen to us. In preference over other ancient guilds, we who, as newspaper men from the greatest of all crafts, have chosen to fling open for the wandering foot and flying wheel this wonder trail of the gods among the shinning summits and amid the deep green hearts of the hills of glory.
As the legions of Napoleon stood with dust grimed banners and blood-stained eagles in the sun before the pyramids, the great captain addressed them and said: ‘Soldiers of France, fourteen centuries look down upon you this day.’ But we who now stand here to unlock the gates of these mystic mountains have a greater thing to say.
Not fourteen centuries, but the beginningless and the eternal scroll of the heavens look down upon us – sun by day and moon and stars by night, people of eve and amber of the dawg and the ‘Lord God of the Ages’ sitting in his golden chair. We who dedicate this century-mile road on the rim of the world perform a ceremony, which the most mythical rites of Egypt, the shadows of Hindu temples and the secrets of the Druid groves and Aztec caves, pale into childish commonplaces, for it is to open the doors of the very dawn itself that we stand here today.
California’s Poet Laureate John S. McGroarty.
We fling wide for whomsoever shall come, a pathway where only the feet of the winds ever wandered before and whosoever shall come tomorrow and throughout all the tomorrows that are yet to be, he shall have within his soul an exaltation unknown before as he treks upon this magic trail of wonder, amid the serene glory of the hills of God. He shall look down upon the desert sands, beneath which are buried civilizations more ancient than Babylon. He shall be lifted to the very thrones of the stars and touch fingers to the tip of the crescent moon. The wind shall play upon the harp-strings of his soul and all the squalid cares and petty things of life shall fall from him as dead leaves from the reawakened tree in the leaping joy of spring.
Therefore, my brothers, let us dedicate to our fellow men in the name of the Lord God the road of Glory on the Rim of the World. Let us dedicate it to weary souls that they may unload their burdens and to tired hearts that they may forget their cares. Let us dedicate it to California that she may beacon her welcome from the skies to every people – California our Beloved.
Rim of the World Drive began as historic Native American migration trails which were adapted into logging roads and turned into toll roads, which were purchased by the county beginning in 1905. The last purchase was in 1913, creating the San Bernardino Mountain Crest Wagon Road, paid for by the county and opened to free public use. After a couple of automobiles proved those dirt roads “drive-able,” the county opened them to auto-stage use and this ceremony was the opening of a roadway to fulltime auto traffic for faster access of the mountain areas for all.
Upon this 1915 dedication, this roadway became the longest and highest mountain highway in the United States. By 1918 the Rim of the World Drive became a designated state highway.
The 1915 opening ceremony of Rim of the World Drive.
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