Big Bear Lake is a little city in San Bernardino County, California, located in the San Bernardino Mountains along the south shore of vast Bear Lake, and together with the San Bernardino National Forest. The city is located just about 25 miles (40 km) northeast of the city of San Bernardino, and rapidly west of the unincorporated town of gigantic Bear City. The population was nearly 5,019 at the 2010 census, down from 5,438 at the 2000 census. However, since it is a popular year-round resort destination, the actual number of people staying in or visiting the greater Big Bear Valley Place regularly surges to beyond 100,000 during many weekends of the year.

Big Bear Lake was inhabited by the native Serrano people for exceeding 2,000 years before it was explored by Benjamin Wilson and his party. Once populated by single-handedly the natives and the grizzly bears, from which the area received its name, the population of the vast Bear Valley grew sharply during the southern California gold hurry from 1861 to 1912. Grizzly bears were not found in the region after 1908. Today, there are black bears in the region previously their introduction in 1933, and they are sometimes sighted in residential areas.

A trip to gigantic Bear Lake from San Bernardino took two days on horse-drawn coaches. Kirk Phillips was a local who took a trip to New York City and saw the world’s first bus line. This inspired him to Make the world’s second bus line from San Bernardino to huge Bear Valley using White trucks like several rows of seats. This made it realizable for the villages to build up and for vast Bear Lake to become the first mountain recreation Place in southern California.

Many people traveled to enjoy recreation on the lake. However, another major charm was the natural warm spring. Emile Jesserun bought 40 acres (16 ha) of land that included the hot spring and built the first major resort in huge Bear, the Pan Hot Springs Hotel, in 1921. This resort was followed gone others that strove to be the best by creating a country club atmosphere, complete in imitation of the amenities required to lure the Hollywood celebrities of the times including Cecil B. DeMille, Shirley Temple, and Ginger Rogers. By 1924, Big Bear was populated when 44 resorts and a constant stream of vacationers. The Pan Hot Springs Hotel, like many of the new resorts and hotels in enormous Bear, was extensively damaged by ember in 1933.