The History of Crestline & Lake Gregory

Mormon Springs, Camp Lincoln, Pine Mont and Crest City were just a few of the names used to describe the camping spot that was to become the town of Crestline. In 1917, The Pacific Electric Company built a vacation camp for its employees where families lived in tent houses and enjoyed the use of a community dining room, social hall, swimming pool and mountain sports activities. By1920, almost 150 people per week, were living in the camping area. But the development of Crestline as a mountain community began as early as 1906 when a syndicate of San Bernardino investors purchased 630 acres for $11,000.

“Here on the summit of the range, far above the heat of the Valley, a summer colony will be established,” which shall be a veritable summer city among the pin,” proclaimed Henry Guernsey, one of the members of the syndicate that bought the land.

Guernsey laid out streets, sunk wells, put in water mains and built a house for himself. The new crest community was first called “Summer City in the Pines.” In July of 1906, a contest held to rename the town. Dr. Wesley Thompson’s entry of “Crestline” won the prize.

S.W. Dillin, a former Hollywood screenwriter for the Keystone Cops series, came to the Crestline area suffering from severe asthma. Eventually, the crisp mountain air helped his condition, nd he stayed for several years. Dillin created the Crestline Tavern out of an old cement warehouse with its rustic porches and a 36-foor long dance floor decorated with flags, branches, pine cones and Japanese lanterns. Dillin also built a cabin and store, which eventually housed the first post office in Crestline with Dillin becoming Crestline’s first postmaster. Soon cabins began popping up on both sides of Dillin’s Crestline Store and Tavern.

During the 1920’s, the sparsely settle region of Rim of the World fell prey to the sub-dividers.Following in the footsteps of Lake Arrowhead, forested subdivisions sprang up like weeds after a good rain. Before the decade ended, the mountain crest had become urbanized with clusters of homes with names such as Skyland Heights, Cedar Pines Park, Valley of Enchantment, Twin Peaks, Alpine Glens Park, Cedar Pines Highlands and Valley of the Moon.

In 1928, Charles S. Mann, a leading mountain developer of the era, bought the center of Crestline and began to remodel the business district.He built the Rim of the World Inn and hired Millard S. Binney as the sales manager. Binney hired a courtesy real estate bus that brought prospective buyers from Los Angeles to the Rim of the World area. By the end of the decade, there were 500 homes in the Crestline area and 1,000 more in the adjacent communities of Cedar Pines Park, Valley of the Moon and Skyland.