Where Route 66 comes down from the Cajon Pass, and where Richard and Maurice McDonald founded McDonald's in 1940.
2,210 mi from Chicago
4 stories to hear
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About San Bernardino
San Bernardino was named in 1810, when the Spanish priest Francisco Dumetz led an expedition through the area. Mormon settlers bought the rancho and founded the town in 1851. Most of them left in 1857, and the city grew into a commercial hub between Southern California and the Southwest.
Today's State Route 66 follows Foothill Boulevard into the city, where it becomes Fifth Street; the original Route 66 left town on Mount Vernon Avenue and Cajon Boulevard, climbing to the Cajon Pass. A Route 66 museum stands on the site of the original McDonald's, and each September downtown hosts the Route 66 Rendezvous.
On the road, Lorecast plays these on its own as you drive past each place. Here you can listen first. Each story lists its sources.
HISTORY · TOLD BY MILES · 81 SEC
A depot built to withstand fire
What does an 800,000-dollar response to a midnight fire look like? In San Bernardino, it looks like the Santa Fe Depot—a station built after the old wooden one burned just after midnight on November 17, 1916. Local politicians demanded something grander, and architect W.A. Mohr delivered: the largest railway station west of the Mississippi when it opened on July 15, 1918. They made it fireproof—hollow clay blocks, red tile, stucco—and dressed it in Mission Revival with Moorish and Spanish Colonial touches. Four domed towers surrounded a lobby with polished tile and handcrafted beams. For decades, the depot was the city's grand front door, serving Santa Fe and Union Pacific trains, with names like the Super Chief and City of Los Angeles. But cars, buses, and planes gradually stole the crowds. In 1971, Santa Fe handed passenger service to Amtrak. The old depot fell quiet, then was bought by SANBAG in 1992. An over-15-million-dollar restoration began in 2002, and the waiting area reopened to passengers on May 2, 2008.
In 1927, San Bernardino County built a courthouse that still stands — a Classical Revival building faced in unpainted stone and stucco, an unusual choice. But it wasn't the first. An earthquake in the 1920s had wrecked the earlier courthouse, found unsafe. So the county supervisors bought a block on North Arrowhead Street, issued a $450,000 bond, and hired an architect named Jones. He had proposed multiple remodels of the old building, but now he got to start fresh. Legend has it he drew inspiration from the 1893 World Columbian Exposition in Chicago and the City Beautiful movement. The result: a building with classical columns spanning the second and third floors, a parapet along the roof line, and regularly spaced windows. It's the only surviving Classical Revival building in the city.
The California Theatre of the Performing Arts opened in 1928 as part of the Fox Theatres chain. It still houses its original Wurlitzer Style 216 pipe organ. In the early years of Hollywood, filmmakers would test-screen their movies here. Classic films such as King Kong and The Wizard of Oz were first seen by audiences at this theatre in the 1930s. It was also the site of the last performance by Will Rogers prior to his death in a 1935 plane crash.
In 1931, the federal government built a post office at 390 West 5th Street in San Bernardino. It's one of the few buildings in the city that predates 1950. The architect was Simon, and he blended several styles: the overall plan is Beaux-Arts, but the decorative details borrow from Mediterranean Revival and Italianate. Out front, there's an arcade with columns topped by acanthus leaf capitals, and a second-floor porch. A red terra cotta tile roof caps it all. Today, it's still the main post office — a quiet survivor from a different era.
Twenty tipi-shaped rooms, which the motel calls wigwams, built by Frank Redford in 1947–49 on old Route 66 at the Rialto city line. On the National Register since 2012.
The 1918 Mission Revival depot, the largest railway station west of the Mississippi when it opened. Restored from 2002, it serves Amtrak and Metrolink and houses the San Bernardino Railroad and History Museum.
A 1928 Fox theatre where Hollywood test-screened films, among them King Kong and The Wizard of Oz, and where Will Rogers gave his last performance. Its original Wurlitzer pipe organ is still inside.
The 1927 Classical Revival courthouse stands where Mormon settlers built a stockade, Fort San Bernardino, in 1851. Nothing of the fort remains; markers on the grounds remember it.
The 1931 post office at 390 West 5th Street, one of the few buildings in the city older than 1950, with an arcaded front and a red terra cotta tile roof.
San Bernardino is about 2,210 miles from Chicago along the route. It is on day 14 of our 14-day plan.
Barstow Harvey House (Casa del Desierto) 71 mi east
A 1911 Harvey House hotel and Santa Fe depot by Francis W. Wilson, who also designed El Garces in Needles. It now holds the Amtrak station, city offices and the Route 66 “Mother Road” Museum.
Let San Bernardino tell its own stories as you drive in.
Lorecast plays short stories about the places around you, hands-free. Download Route 66 before you leave and it works offline. Route 66 is free through December 31, 2027.
How these stories are made
Lorecast stories are written with AI using only the sources listed under each story, and they are narrated with synthetic voices. An automatic check traces every name and date back to those sources, and legends are told as legends. Every story on this page was also checked against its sources before we published it here. If you spot a mistake, write to hello@lorecast.net.
