Bear Valley

History

The Bear Valley area as we know it today was originally called Grizzly Bear Valley, so named by O. B. Powers in August of 1855. Powers led a scouting expedition funded by business interests in Murphys, Angels Camp, and Stockton, to seek a trans-Sierra route. There was already a haying operation here then, by a Smith & Company. The name was never formal; it was referred to as Stanislaus River at Road House, Blood's Station, Blood's Toll Station, or Grizzly Bear Valley. It was probably called Bear Valley all along too, but the first written designation of this as Bear Valley found is a stagecoach itinerary from 1869.

There are tales of notable personalities such as Jedediah Smith who came through the area in 1827 and Major John Ebbetts who came into the area in 1850. They were no doubt the first white men in the area. "Major" John Ebbetts was a 33-year-old mountain man who was hired as a guide to get a party of New York prospectors over the Sierra Nevada and into California.

In 1853 John Ebbetts led a survey party back into the vicinity of the pass named for him in an attempt to locate a possible route for a transcontinental railroad into California from the east. Grizzly Bear Valley came into prominence when this trail route, as identified by Ebbetts, was developed into a wagon trail by a group of businessmen from Murphys.

With the eventual extinction of Grizzlies and after Harvey Blood established a toll station and service facilities, the area was known as Blood's Station at Bear Valley for over 40 years. Harvey's Daughter, Reba, became well known as she baked pies and brought them to the road workers in the area. They named a distant peak after her Mt. Reba, hence the original name of the ski area in the late 1960 ²s. In 1910, the road ceased to be a toll road and became a free state road. Harvey Blood died in May, 1910. For a number of years after his death, Louis Lombardi, his friend and Calaveras county cattleman, operated Blood's Station. Lombardi ran cattle in the Bear Valley area for 70 years. The Blood Family sold all of their holdings to the Bishop Mining and Cattle Company in 1920.