Big Bear History Site The Lake | Big Bear History Site

We plan to add a lot more historical videos to this Big Bear History site. So we’ve created a new “Historical Video” section on the menu bar above. To get things started we posted a new video about the historic Mel Blanc home in Sawmill Cove. Check it out in the above menu bar, or click here! Visit us often for more new videos!

Sawmill Cove today, with the historic Blanc home. – © Rick Keppler Collection.

Sawmill Cove as it was in the late 1800’s. – Rick Keppler Collection.

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The August 25, 2012, Big Bear Classic Boat Show had a beautifully restored 26‘ Chris Craft named “Step In Again 1”. Sixty years ago, this boat was a familiar site on Big Bear Lake. It was part of a fleet of four “Step In Again” high performance tour boats that operated on the lake from the late 1930’s through the early 1950’s. “Step In Again One” was the most powerful, and fastest boat in this small fleet. What made it so unique, was that it was powered by a huge 500 hp Allison aircraft engine. It was removed from Big Bear in the late 1940’s, when it’s engine blew up on a high speed run down the lake.

Now after more than sixty years later, “Step In Again 1” is back on Big Bear Lake. Click Here for more photos and the full story.

Big Bear Lake

Kim Sweet and Rick Keppler present some history of the marina and village at Big Bear Lake, California. This presentation is illustrated with a collection of old historical photos showing the evolution of both the marina and the village area on the lake near the intersection of Big Bear Boulevard and Big Bear Boulevard. This interview was conducted by John Wells on the Friday “Good Day Big Bear” show on Channel-6.

There was once a time, before the dam was built, about 20,000 plus years ago when our Big Bear Lake was larger and up to sixty feet higher higher than it is today. How was this possible? Noel Blanc, the host of the “Good Day Big Bear” on Channel-6 discusses this with Kim Sweet and Rick Keppler in the following video. Check it out.

Note: This post contains material from the Channel-6’s The Big Bear History Show. The copyrighted information in this article have been presented here with permission from Rick Keppler and Bear Valley Broadcasting.

The last sections of the old historic bridge across the Big Bear Lake dam are being removed. The bridge was built back in 1924.

The last couple sections of railing, and what is left of the road that was built in 1924, look out across the Big Bear Lake dam towards the South Shore road where it once connected. © Rick Keppler.