Wrightwood and Big Pines celebrate their 100th anniversary, here’s a look at their history – Daily Bulletin

Wrightwood and the adjacent Big Pines recreation area in the San Gabriel Mountains are celebrating their 100th anniversary this year.

The fact that the mountain community and the adjacent recreation area shared birthdays was partly due to proximity and partly coincidence, but Big Pines got things started.

Big Pines is located at the top of Swarthout Valley and stretches across the two pine-covered ridges that form the valley. The higher southern ridge of the valley became known as the Blue Ridge.

In 1920, Reuben F. McClellan, chairman of the LA County Board of Supervisors, developed the idea of ​​a year-round public park and sold the concept to his colleagues by personally giving them tours of the forest in the upper Swarthout Valley.

The new park became a reality in June 1922 when Los Angeles County purchased 560 acres of private land in Big Pines for $62,000. Some descriptions put the size at as much as 760 acres.

The August 10, 1924, issue of the Los Angeles Times featured a full page of articles, photographs and maps of the park and proclaimed, “The new mountain paradise is ready for conquest.”

A new road from Palmdale to Big Pines was completed and opened on July 22, 1924.

In 1925, 5,000 acres of adjacent U.S. Forest Service land were transferred to LA County jurisdiction and became part of Big Pines Public Park.

Over the next few years, significant facilities and improvements were built at Big Pines, making it the region’s most comprehensive year-round public park and the crown jewel of the Los Angeles County park system.

The county built a large, two-story recreation hall at the top of Swarthout Valley to serve as a center of activities. The rustic wooden building still stands today and is used by the U.S. Forest Service as a visitor center.

Facilities at Big Pines included a lodge, swimming pool, rental cabins, a zoo, and extensive campgrounds with more than 447 outdoor cooking and fire pits. Nearby Jackson Lake was improved and used for swimming, boating, and ice skating in the winter.

Winter facilities included an ice skating rink, ski slopes, and a large professional ski jump built at Blue Ridge in 1929 in hopes of attracting the 1932 Winter Olympics. The Olympic Committee rejected Big Pines in favor of the better-developed winter sports facilities at Lake Placid, New York.

In 1926, the county completed the Davidson Arch, a rustic stone arch that spanned the highway at the top of Swarthout Valley, near the recreation hall. The arch was removed around 1950, but the north tower section still stands in the recreation hall today.

In 1937, a ski tow facility was built at Big Pines on Table Mountain, and in the same year Los Angeles County handed over operation of the ski facilities in nearby Blue Ridge to private operators.

In the 1949/50 season, Holiday Hill Ski Resort, the third ski area in Big Pines, opened east of Blue Ridge.

Today, all three are operated by Mountain High Resorts and offer state-of-the-art lifts, ski and snowboard runs, snowmaking facilities and guest amenities. Table Mountain became Mountain High North, Blue Ridge became Mountain High West and Holiday Hill became Mountain High East.

Due to the Great Depression and World War II, public parks in Los Angeles County were severely limited financially, and in July 1941 the county turned over management of Big Pines Park to the U.S. Forest Service.

The Forest Service began closing and removing facilities and most of the land was returned to its natural state.

The Big Pines Recreation Hall and North Tower remain as reminders of the remarkable facilities of Big Pines Park. The landscape and facilities of Big Pines attract thousands of visitors each year.

Wrightwood Origins

In 1890, Sumner Wright established a modest 40-acre ranch in Swarthout Valley, and by 1895 he had expanded his operation to about 3,300 acres. Wright raised cattle and planted apple orchards on the ranch, about 3 miles southeast of the future site of Big Pines Park.

In 1906, Wright and his wife Kate built a spacious ranch house and several guest houses near a small pond that became known as Wright Lake.

The Wright Ranch fell on hard times and in 1919 the family was forced to sell their cattle operation. The Wrights’ financial problems continued until the early 1920s, when severe frost destroyed much of the apple crop.

Faced with impending financial ruin, Wright joined a group of real estate investors in Los Angeles in 1924 and began dividing his ranch property into residential lots.