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The main purpose of this writing is not to detail the origins or corporate history of the Pacific Electric Railway Company, but rather to discuss how it played a major role in the early development of San Bernardino and its surrounding communities.

Despite California's legendary obsession with the automobile, there was once a critical, and for a time very successful, mode of public transportation in southern California. During the late 1800s and early 1900s, there was a very viable means of public transportation becoming available for people to travel within their communities and between cities. This was the electric railway.

Prior to this time, roads were poor and automobiles were still too expensive for the average family to afford. The trolley car for the first time gave people a truly fast, convenient, and economical method of transportation. From 1903 until 1965, the Pacific Electric Railway Company did this particularly well in southern California. In fact, because of the vast Pacific Electric network, stretching from as far north as San Fernando to as far south as Corona, with hubs established at both Los Angeles and San Bernardino, southern California once had the largest electric interurban rail system in the world. Aboard the Pacific Electric Railway, a person could easily in a day's outing visit the blue waters of the Pacific Ocean, then venture to the golden-green tapestry of the orange groves and majestic mountain ranges of the inland valleys. Very long distances could easily be commuted. As early as 1914, Pacific Electric interurban trolleys were capable of over 60 miles-per-hour.

One of the many areas where the Pacific Electric Railway played a significant role in early development was the San Bernardino valley. San Bernardino had since its early origins been a major transportation hub and had earned the nickname of the "Gateway City." Even before electric trolley lines appeared, three transcontinental railroads had already established a hub in or near San Bernardino. These were the Santa Fe, Southern Pacific, and Salt Lake railroads. Later, the Pacific Electric Railway would ultimately establish a large hub in San Bernardino connecting lines to Los Angeles, Riverside, Arrowhead Hot Springs, Colton, Highland, Redlands, and Urbita Springs.

The origin of the Pacific Electric Railway Company's local lines in San Bernardino can be traced back to the San Bernardino Valley Traction Company. It is fair to say that the SBVT itself can be traced back to a humble beginning with one young man's ambition and determination. The tale of his efforts should spark a sense of hope for every aspiring inventor or entrepreneur. In 1900, 29 year-old Seth Hartley, a resident of Colton, had been working at the Santa Fe depot in San Bernardino. Each day, he walked the dusty five miles between his home and San Bernardino. Seth had read of the progress being made in other cities with building electric railways and he knew a trolley line was needed to connect Colton with San Bernardino. He collected and read every book and article he could find on the subject of electric railways and then began a one-man crusade to build a trolley line. On his way to and from San Bernardino, he planned a route and calculated the distance and figured how many ties and amount of rail, overhead energizing wire, and other hardware that would be needed to build the trolley line. He wrote a proposal, and with $84 to his name, he approached a civil engineer with the plan. This engineer was George Pillsbury, who would later become the Pacific Electric's chief engineer. The proposal had a shaky start, during which Seth had difficulty getting funding from investors. But he persevered. In February of 1901, with the backing of financiers Abram C. Denman, and John and Henry Fisher, a new railway company was incorporated. This was the San Bernardino Valley Traction Company. Unfortunately, Seth Hartley, though very creative and ambitious, had very little real business experience at the time and was not involved with the SBVT for very long. He was coerced out of the company and was kept as a manager only for a short period of time. Seth Hartley never again had any involvement with the SBVT, although without his efforts the SBVT may never have materialized.

From that time forward, A.C. Denman primarily led the traction company, alternately serving as General Manager and President. The SBVT proceeded ambitiously with constructing electric trolley lines in San Bernardino. A small depot was built on Third Street, just west of D. The line to Colton was completed and concurrently lines were built to Redlands and Highland, as well as to Urbita Hot Springs (the present-day site of the Inland Center Mall). A line was also built from Third and D, north on D Street to Baseline Road. In 1906, this line was extended and would ultimately become the Arrowhead Hot Springs line.

From Baseline Road, the Arrowhead line ran north to Highland Avenue, east on Highland Avenue to Mountain View Avenue, north on Mountain View Avenue to Electric Avenue and continued northeast through the foothills to Arrowhead Hot Springs. Originally, the SBVT intended to build the trolley line directly to the Arrowhead Hotel, but due to heavy construction costs and the very rough terrain, the line did not quite reach the hotel. To complete the remaining gap would have been a difficult engineering challenge and would have required a costly bridge. Thus, the line stopped just short of the hotel, at an old reservoir site. A station was built here, where passengers would connect with a carriage to be taken the rest of the way to the hotel. It is interesting to note that today the right-of-way for the Arrowhead Hot Springs line appears to be the only remaining trace of any of the early trolley lines.

Meanwhile, the Pacific Electric Railway had been connecting cities and communities throughout southern California. In 1910, the PE merged with Southern Pacific and numerous smaller electric railway companies. It also acquired the San Bernardino Valley Traction Company, although for several more years the SBVT continued as an operating company and operated its lines under its own name. Henry Huntington, the founder of the Pacific Electric, had long recognized San Bernardino's critical strategic and economic importance and had dreamed of building a line to the "Gateway City" where he could establish a lucrative hub. In 1914, a line was at last built between Los Angeles and San Bernardino. This was the last step toward completing an immense electric railway system all across southern California. It had tremendous benefits for San Bernardino. The original SBVT depot was soon closed and the Pacific Electric based its hub at the larger Southern Pacific station on Third Street, between E and F Streets.

With a major hub established, the Pacific Electric began to bring a huge number of visitors and new residents into San Bernardino. Fourth of July celebrations at the Urbita Springs Park and the Orange Show began to attract more visitors than ever before. They came into the city aboard Pacific Electric Railway interurbans from all over southern California. These larger, faster long-distance interurban trolley cars became affectionately know as the "Big Red Cars." It was very common during these celebrations for Pacific Electric to still be bringing in passengers from afar well after midnight. For a time, the Arrowhead Hotel had also built up tremendous fame, and by far most of the visitors traveled to it by way of the trolley line. During that time, the land beyond Baseline Road was not very heavily settled and the remainder of the trolley ride was made through "wide open spaces." One of the fascinating bits of history from San Bernardino's relationship with the Pacific Electric Railway is the fact that in the early days of motion pictures, MGM Studios executives would often charter PE "Big Red Cars" stocked with food and wine to bring its dignitaries to San Bernardino for premiers, as the city had one of the very few theaters equipped for sound.

Doubtless, San Bernardino's numerous parks, as well as its many renowned educational and cultural centers such as the Carnegie Library, Broadway Theater, Sturges Theater, to name a few, also attracted their fair share of enlightened visitors to the city. For a time, a popular baseball park had also been conveniently located right next to the Pacific Electric station on Third Street.

Every city must have some unique property for its own economic survival, prosperity, and its morale, whether that is its available natural resources, education, tourism, or industry. In the case of San Bernardino, it was the distinction of being the Gateway City. From its earliest beginnings, San Bernardino was a transportation hub. More specifically, it had become a major rail transportation hub. The railroad and the city of San Bernardino were inseparably linked. Pacific Electric began to experience a system-wide decline in ridership during the 1930s. In the 1940s, PE began to discontinue less profitable passenger service on some lines and other lines were shut down completely. By 1943, all regular passenger service to and from San Bernardino was discontinued. For several years thereafter, Pacific Electric continued to transport freight, a great deal of it being in the shipment of lumber and citrus products on the line to Los Angeles and in transport of mountain spring water on the Arrowhead line. However, when the San Bernardino station was closed down in the early 1960s, the effect would prove disastrous. When the Pacific Electric Railway left San Bernardino, a slow and tragic downward spiral in the city's economy began. In 1965, the Pacific Electric Railway Company was quietly merged into the Southern Pacific Railroad and disappeared entirely as an operating entity.

The effect was not felt immediately. At the time, it was deemed that the electric railway was "obsolete" and that the Pacific Electric Railway's services were no longer needed. More of the public now used their own cars for transportation and freeways to San Bernardino's neighboring cities and communities were already being constructed. It is no coincidence that many of today's freeways, especially the 215, 30, and 10 freeways follow former railroad routes. It was assumed that the Southern Pacific and Santa Fe railroads could provide for any remaining freight or passenger transportation needs. For a time, this was certainly true. However, by the late 1960s and into the early 1970s, the nation's major transcontinental railroads also began to discontinue passenger service. Thus, San Bernardino was soon left without any passenger rail service. The Santa Fe Railroad also later closed down its repair shops and in general significantly downsized its San Bernardino station. For a railroad town, this spelled certain doom. San Bernardino no longer had its critical strategic importance as a transportation hub. It was no longer the "Gateway City." Third Street degraded into a dismal ghost town. It is also not a coincidence that the Central City Mall was built (obliterating much of Third Street) at the site where the Pacific Electric Railway station had been, and that other demolition and "redevelopment" projects took place in the 1960s and early 1970s. This was the same time period when San Bernardino lost most of its critical railroad industry, which would ultimately seal the city's fate. Today, it can be said that San Bernardino still has never completely recovered from that loss. For over 50 years, the Pacific Electric Railway, though only one of many railroads to serve San Bernardino, played a huge and inseparable role in its early development and prosperity.