Green Valley Lake
1880s Timber claims made on Green Valley area by Highland Lumber Co.
1891 Highland Lumber builds City Creek Toll Rd. (Hwy 330) Took lumber from Fredalba to Molina Box Factory to make orange crates.
1892-94 Horse trail from Fredalba lumber camp to Big Bear widened into toll wagon road by Bear Valley Wagon Rd. Co.Eleven-room Toll House was near entrance to campground. They gave the name of Green Valley to the area.
1893 San Bernardino National Forest "Reserve" created.
1894 Ben Pitts operates tollhouse each summer. Grows huge potatoes to serve guests. Leaves in 1902 to open hotel in Redlands.
1899 Highland Lumber Co. bought out by Brookings Lumber Co.
1903 Tillitt family settles in Green Valley to run the tollhouse for Bear Valley Wagon Road Co. George and Demaris (May) have three children. For 17 years they run tollhouse, general store, garage, and maintain the road. Send Jefferey Pine seeds to South Africa for British government. They spend winters at house on Del Rosa.
1904 Brookings hauls 27 ton locomotive up mountain by 6 wagons pulled by mules.
1911 County purchases toll road. Brookings rail reaches almost to Green Valley. (Lighteningdale)
1912 Green Valley area clear-cut except for Tillit’s homestead area (now campground)
1913 Brookings sells out and moves to Oregon. Most of the land bought by Marion Shay for cattle grazing.
1915 Trading Post and gas station built next to tollhouse. Tillitt improves Fawnskin road for automobiles for the county.
1923 Deep Creek Cutoff completed (Hwy 18) to Big Bear. Nicknamed “Arctic Circle”. Cuts off Green Valley.
1924 Harry McMullen (Green Valley Mac) buys up property with idea of the dam; he sells the idea and the land to DeWitt-Blair Co. who are financed by Union Bank. Contractors Clinton, Code, & Hill design the dam, the subdivision, and a water system. Mac was a fishing guide that led parties on horseback to the Deep Creek area.
1925 San Bernardino National Forest created. “Inholdings” remain private property.
1926 Dam finished. Lake is 8.5 acres (34,000 m2). First lots to sell were the Tillits homestead lots that were saved from the logging in 1912.
