By DOUGLAS W. MOTLEY
Senior Writer
Some 30 members of the Rotary Club of Lake Arrowhead attending their weekly luncheon meeting at the Twin Peaks Community Center on Tuesday, Feb. 18 were treated to an inspiring lecture by local historian Rhea-Frances Tetley on the history of Lake Arrowhead, dating back several thousand years to the Serrano Indian settlement at Rock Creek Camp, just north of Lake Arrowhead and winding up at the logging era of Lake Arrowhead and its surrounding area.
Following an introduction by Rotary President Jay Rynda, where he described the goals of the Rotary Club and the various charities that benefit from Rotary activities, lunch catered by Goodwin’s was served: salad and a cheesy-potato casserole, topped off with a homemade peach cobbler for dessert.
Local historian Rhea-Frances Tetley detailed the early history of Lake Arrowhead at the Rotary meeting.
Tetley, a co-founder and former president of the Rim of the World Historical Society and a docent at the society’s Mountain History Museum, noted that Lake Arrowhead is the oldest developed area of the San Bernardino Mountains. Her great-grandfather, Frank Tetley, and grandfather, Frank Tetley Jr, subdivided the Valley of Enchantment area of Crestline in the 1920s and 30s. She described the Serranos as a peaceful tribe, who came to the mountains in the spring and summer months to escape the desert heat. They subsisted by gathering acorns, nuts and hunting for small game. They co-existed with the Paiute tribe, which came from the northern desert region to the mountain to hunt big game and resided in the mountains until the 1860s.
Tetley also spoke about the first European to travel through our mountain area, Father Garces, a Spanish Franciscan priest. In 1776 he was seeking a trade route from the Spanish missions in Arizona to the missions in California. Garces took the Mojave River Indian Trail to what is now known as Monument Peak in Cedarpines Park, where he first saw the Pacific Ocean and knelt and gave a prayer. He was followed along the same route 50 years later by Jedediah Smith, who, by his arrival in Mexican California, proved that California was connected by land to the United States.
Tetley continued her talk by describing the lumber mill era and the harvesting of lumber that was used in constructing cities and towns such as Los Angeles and throughout Southern California. She explained how the loggers and peaceful Serrano Indians were getting along when the Paiutes caused a conflict by burning down one of the sawmills in the valley.
The Rotary members were very attentive and engrossed in the story, when the meeting ran out of time. She was asked to return and continue the history of the area at a future meeting.
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