MILEPOSTS #1091

By Bill Pumford, Image from the WCLA Collection

TITLE: WOMEN’S CLUB OF LAKE ARROWHEAD: One of the longest-running civic organizations in the San Bernardino Mountains is the Women’s Club of Lake Arrowhead. A group of women got together in early 1926 to organize and officially create the club known at the time as the Woman’s Club of Lake Arrowhead. Several of the early meetings took place at the Raven (now the Saddleback Inn). This week’s image shows some of the early members. Two of the primary focuses of the Club were education and conservation, and Grace Williams and Mary Henck were some of the more visible leaders in this effort. There were many notable achievements of the early Club. The Woman’s Club backed the initiative to have the new schoolhouse built in 1926, and on Arbor Day 1926 a large reforestation effort took place at the old Heaps Ranch. The Woman’s Club and local school children worked together to plant hundreds of trees. In 1930 a library was constructed in Lake Arrowhead Village and the Woman’s Club donated $45 towards the first year’s salary for the librarian. San Bernardino covered the librarian’s salary from then on. Also, in 1930 the Woman’s Club petitioned the Highway Division to apply a white stripe in the middle of the newly completed High Gear Road to help drivers see in the fog. The request was approved, and the white line was applied within months. Later in the 1930s Sara Switzer, past president of the Woman’s Club, seeded the colorful Spanish Broom plant all the way down High Gear Road, which we all get to enjoy today. In 1938 the Woman’s Club erected a plaque at Rock Camp to honor the role that the Serrano Indian women played in the area. In 2018 the official name of the Club changed to The Women’s Club of Lake Arrowhead. For more information email info@wclakearrowhead.com.

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