SAN BERNARDINO, a city of southern California, U.S.A., 6o m. E. of Los Angeles, at the entrance to the Cajon Pass from the north and the San Gorgonio Pass from the east, 1,050 ft. above sea-level; the county seat of San Bernardino county. It is on Federal highways 66 and 99, and is served by the Santa Fe, the Southern Pacific, the Union Pacific and electric railways, and by motor coach and truck lines in every direction. Pop. 18,721 in 1920 (79% native white) ; 37,481 in 1930 by the Federal census. The city is surrounded by the orange groves, vineyards, orchards and fields of the fertile San Bernardino valley, and has for back ground the San Bernardino mountain range, with Mt. San Ber nardino (11,600 ft.) only 20 M. E. It is a division terminal of the Santa Fe railroad, which maintains extensive repair shops here and employs altogether over 2,500 persons in the city. Other leading industries are the manufacture of iron and steel castings, aeroplanes, lumber and meat products, ice and refrigerators.
In 181o, on the feast day of San Bernardino of Siena, a party of missionaries, soldiers and Indians from the San Gabriel Mis sion, under the leadership of Father Dumetz, came into the San Bernardino valley to establish a station for travellers between the Mission and the Sierras to the north, and built a chapel on a site now within the southern boundary of the city. In 1851 a colony of Mormons (about zoo) came from Salt Lake, laid out a city, and did much to develop the agricultural possibilities of the valley. The county was organized in 1853, with its seat at San Bernardino, which was incorporated as a town in 1854. It was chartered as a city in 1864 and again in 1905. The Southern Pacific in 1876, and the Santa Fe in 1885, connected it first with the ocean and then with the east, and by 1900 the population had grown to 6,150.