Beaumont

For years, the plateau cradled between Mount San Gorgonio in the San Bernardino Mountain Range and Mount San Jacinto in the San Jacinto Mountain Range was called Summit, because it was the highest point in the San Gorgonio Pass. The Southern Pacific Railroad built a small red station at that site even before it was a town. A real estate boom followed, and the town's name metamorphosed from Summit to San Gorgonio to Beaumont. A real estate bust occurred in the late 1980s and eventually ebbed...