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San Bernardino is the name of a county in the southeastern part of California, whose broad expanse is mainly made up of volcanic mountains, desert plains, and valleys without timber or water.

The name was first given to the snow-capped peak, 11,600 feet high, lying about twenty miles east of the city of San Bernardino, which is situated sixty miles east of Los Ángeles, in the fruit and alfalfa region. The name of this town is one of the most regrettable examples of corruption that have occurred in the state, having passed from its original sweetly flowing syllables through the successive stages of San Berdino, Berdino, until finally reaching the acme of vulgarity as Berdoo, by which appellation it is known to its immediate neighbors. If ideas of romance, of pleasant-sounding words, and of fidelity to history make no appeal to our fellow-Californians, let them read again the quotation from Stevenson given above, and learn that a romantic nomenclature may sometimes be a valuable financial asset.

San Bernardino (St. Bernardinus), the patron saint of the places bearing his name, is particularly remembered as the founder of the charitable institution known in Spanish as Monte de Piedad (hill of pity), and in French as Mont de Piété, municipal pawnshops where money was loaned on pledges to the poor. These pawnshops are still conducted in many Spanish towns, in America as well as in Europe.