Around the turn of the twentieth century, when the Baldy Bowl was transitioning from resource extraction and toward recreation, a series of bitter conflicts took place there between the San Antonio Water Company and various camp owners. Pollution of the watershed and an 1899 brush fire led the company to wrest legal control of the road through the canyon away from Charles Baynham, close off the canyon with locked gates, and station armed guards to keep out intruders. But after some time and various legal battles, the company decided to profit from recreation rather than discouraging it. It bought Baynham's Camp in 1907 but then hired Baynham to manage it, charging tolls on the road from 1908 to 1922. The camp was renamed Camp Baldy in 1910, and in the following year the canyon became accessible by automobile.[2] By the early 1920s there were numerous trail camps and resorts in the area. When the area became a national forest in 1908, the forest service began offering 99-year leases of plots of land, including at Camp Baldy.
During Prohibition, the area became known as a place where one could get a drink away from the watchful eyes of the police.[3] Former Yosemite concessionaire Foster Curry, his wife Ruth Curry, and Ruth's second husband, movie star Edmund Burns, turned Camp Baldy into a playground for affluent residents of Los Angeles, with a swimming pool, casino, and a dance pavilion.[4][5]
Mount Baldy post office sign, about 1953
The Los Angeles flood of 1938 destroyed most of the human-made structures in Camp Baldy.[6] The casino was destroyed, but the hotel (today's Buckhorn Lodge) survived.[7] Camp Baldy was rebuilt and later became Mt. Baldy Village.
Buildings
Mt Baldy has a post office with ZIP code 91759.[8] The community was established as Camp Baynham in 1906; it changed its name to Camp Baldy in 1910 and became Mt Baldy in 1951. Its post office was established in 1913.[9]
Mt Baldy has relatively cold and very wet winters with moderate snowfall. Temperatures often fall to 30 °F (−1 °C) at night. It is usually 39–49 °F (4–9 °C) during the day during the winter, and 25–35 °F at night. Annual snowfall is about 42 inches (110 cm). Summer temperatures are mild to warm, and can get chilly at night. Daytime temperatures are 76–86 °F (24–30 °C), with lows of 49–62 °F (9–17 °C). Thunderstorms are not common, on occasion they brew in the mountains in and surrounding Mt Baldy. They usually occur in the afternoon, and clear up by late evening.
^A few buildings remain, including the Buckhorn Lodge itself. The original casino burned down in 1936 and was replaced by the Wagon Wheel Casino a year later. The Wagon Wheel was across the street from the Buckhorn Lodge, with the dining room sticking out above the creek. A heated swimming pool adjoined the casino. The dance pavilion, picnic tables, and campsites were at the location of the present-day trout ponds. Osborne, pp. 13, 49
United States
California
San Bernardino
Los Angeles
