By RHEA-FRANCES TETLEY
Historian
This year is the 40th anniversary of the founding of the Rim of the World Historical Society, which began in 1986. Their first outreach to share local history was the creation of the 1987 calendar. Last week the cover photo of the Club San Moritz Lodge in Valley of the Moon with the January picture of ice skating on Moon Lake and February’s Cedarpines Park post office photos were shared.
March: Rim of the World Tavern (Photos from the 1987 Crest Forest Historical Society calendar)
The Rim of the World Tavern in 1945 was the March photo. That 1920s building on Crestline’s crest burned in 1947 in a blaze that was so large it was visible from Riverside. The R.O.W. Tavern and Hotel had a reputation as a lively place. Crestline Village developer Charles S. Mann had his office there for a while, and it was where prospective property purchasers would stay. Linder’s Tires is built there today. It was next door to Bill Linder’s Union 76 gas station at the stop sign at the crest.
Also, at that corner, across the street, was the original 1919 Crestline post office with Postmaster Samuel Dillin (de-lynn), where he operated his photo studio and general store. It was built in early 1900s to warehouse the Arrowhead Reservoir Company’s cement while in transit, after coming up the Arrowhead Reservoir Toll Road and before being hauled to build the dam to create a reservoir at Little Bear Valley (aka Lake Arrowhead).
In the later 1940s, after numerous owners, that wooden building became Cliff’s Trading Post, which burned in 1961. That fire explains why when Cliff Herington Sr. rebuilt the current building as his store, he used cement blocks, as Cliff never wanted it to burn again. (Good thing he did, see the story on the November calendar page.)
In 1987, it was Cliff Herington Jr.’s General Store of Real Estate office, advertised on the March calendar page. Cliff Herington III’s real estate office is currently in that same cement block building, still selling Crestline property. Amazingly, the business has the same phone number with a (909) area code instead of (714).
The April scene of the calendar is a view of Lake Gregory no longer visible from the south side of Lake Drive. The “Switzerland” monument with its tall tower – which was removed in the 1990s due to safety concerns – is welcoming visitors to the Club San Moritz area at Lake Gregory.
April: Switzerland welcome monument and Sonja’s Dining Chalet
The 1947 photo shows the Switzerland sign located next to Sonja’s Dining Chalet, which served shrimp, chicken and waffles. The monument and building are still there but, in this photo, there is a clear view of Lake Gregory behind it, which now can’t be seen due to the construction of Goodwin’s Market in 1986.
One ad of currently operating businesses in the April calendar was La Casita, the Mexican restaurant on Forest Shade, which has been run by the Butrymowicz family since 1983. At 43 years of ownership, it’s possibly the oldest family-owned and operated restaurant on the mountain. Also, Mountain Auto Parts on Lake Drive has the same owner and is still “providing parts for most makes of cars and trucks, domestic or imported.” They really know cars and parts after all these decades.
The San Moritz beach end of Lake Gregory in 1962 with its canals through the gardens was the May calendar photo. “In the hey-day of the private Club San Moritz (CSM) property owners in San Moritz spent their summer afternoons lounging on the beach, swimming, and fishing on their private end of Lake Gregory, or paddling boats through the channels of the well-groomed garden. The photo is taken from the San Moritz Lodge looking across the canals towards the Bath House building,” and later Teen Center, now occupied by the Crest Forest Senior Center, Leisure Shores.
May: Club San Moritz canals through their gardens at Lake Gregory
“As time passed the canals became stagnant, breeding pools for mosquitos and had to be filled in. That peninsula of land cris-crossed by the canals became the San Moritz Ballfield which was graded, turfed and maintained by Rim of the World Park and Recreation Park District.” In the middle of the photo is shown a house previously owned by the Gregory family which had been converted into the Club San Moritz Beach Café. That building’s cement foundation is still on the uphill side of the parking lot, between the Bait and Tackle building at the San Moritz Meadow and Leisure Shores. Many people over the years have speculated about those foundations.
“The old bathhouse building was flooded after the Club San Moritz closed down, and it was rebuilt by the seniors in 1981 into the Leisure Shores Senior Center building being used today.” Playground equipment was on the lake’s beach sand in front of the teen center.
The May advertisement shows Century 21 San Moritz Realty; today the Grant family is still selling real estate from that same building next to the north Switzerland monument. The office has the same seven-digit phone number but now with the (909) area code instead of (714), which was the mountains’ area code then.
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