History of San Bernardino, California

San Bernardino, California, was named in 1810.

San Bernardino's earliest known inhabitants were Serrano Indians (Spanish for "people of the mountains") who spent their winters in the valley, and their summers in the cooler mountains. They were known as the "Yuhaviatam" or People of the Pines. They have lived in the valley since approximately 1000 B.C. They lived in small brush covered structures. At the time the Spanish first visited the valley, approximately 1500 Serranos inhabited the area. They lived in villages of ten to thirty structures that the Spanish named rancherías.

The Tongva Indians also called the San Bernardino area Wa'aach in their language.

Spanish Military Commander of California Pedro Fages probably entered San Bernardino Valley in 1772. Missionary priest Father Francisco Garcés entered the valley in 1774, as did the de Anza Expedition, though not in present-day San Bernardino but further south.

The traditional (since there is a dispute as to the following events) founding and naming of San Bernardino is that Padre Francisco Dumetz, a Franciscan priest, made a trip from the Mission San Gabriel Arcángel to the San Bernardino Valley on May 20, 1810, the feast day of Saint Bernardino of Siena (translated "San Bernardino de Siena" in Spanish) during California's Mission Period. That year Politana, the first Spanish settlement in the San Bernardino Valley, was established as a mission chapel and supply station for travelers on the road into California from Sonora, by the Mission San Gabriel in a ranchería of the Guachama Indians that lived on the bluff that is now known as Bunker Hill.

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