May 20, 1910 - Centennial of San Bernardino

The Cornerstone, where Father Dumetz named the valley & built a chapel, was at Bunker Hill (De Sienna Springs), near Inland Center Dr. & I St. 

The above cornerstone is featured in the 128 page supplement of a local San Bernardino newspaper in 1910.

Quoting from the "Capilla Ceremonies":

'On Centennial Day, May 20, 1910, Bishop Conaty of Los Angeles, laid with due ceremony the cornerstone of a new capilla [chapel] to be erected ...on the exact site of the first building erected in this valley by the white men...

'It is intended to establish in the mission a permanent museum of early day relics and to maintain it as one the show places of the [San Bernardino] valley.' 

On the cornerstone:

The cross was in memory of that first cross in that first chapel built by Padre Dumetz 100 years earlier.

"D. O. M." is a Latin abbreviation for Deo Optimo Maximo ("To God, the Best and Greatest").

May 20 is the feast day of Saint Bernardine of Sienna, a Franciscan priest born in Sienna, Italy in 1380, and for whom the valley was named.

Click here to view selected articles from the 1910 special edition of The Evening Index.

Note: For related stories see "May 20, 1810"; "May 20, 1960" and "May 20, 2010".