Facts Don't Add Up in Upland Mayor's Heroic Tale (Daily Bulletin 051506)...

Just what are the Politicians up to in Upland. Now there are stories being told that have to be checked for truthfulness in the Paper, and they don't quite match up. Well if that is the case then the mayor of Upland is lying.. He could not be lying, maybe stretching the truth, but still there would be some facts that would check out right with what he is saying here.

BSRancher...

Facts don't match up in Upland mayor's heroic tale

By Joe Blackstock, Staff Writer

There's no more endearing story about Upland becoming a city than T. Kirk Vernon's heroic 1906 effort of avoiding rain and flood to deliver the cityhood petition to the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors. He got the documents to the board despite the deluge, which prevented the opposition from attending the meeting to protest. Thus Upland went on to became a city. It's an oft-told story found in history books, repeated by mayors giving City Hall tours, and in articles in newspapers, including this one. And it's wrong. L. Burr Belden, a writer for the San Bernardino Sun-Telegram, did a series of stories on the history of county cities about a half-century ago. In early December 1953, he wrote how Upland became a city. His sole source was Vernon, Upland's third mayor. As one of leaders of the cityhood effort 47 years earlier, he seemed to be the perfect man to interview. Vernon told Belden how he had been entrusted to take the cityhood petition to San Bernardino for the Feb. 19, 1906, supervisors meeting and went a day early to visit a friend. He recalled there was a terrible storm the night before the meeting, washing out roads and railroad lines, preventing both supporters and opponents from attending. Vernon delivered the petition, and, in the absence of opposition, the board allowed the city to hold a cityhood election. Three weeks later, on March 12, Ontario interests protested to the board, but to no avail. It's a nice story, but the facts don't work, based on newspaper accounts and minutes of the Board of Supervisors. First of all, no rain fell on Feb. 18 or 19. Information in local papers said skies were fair with temperatures in the 70s. Additionally, Board of Supervisors minutes for Feb. 19 do not mention Upland. Vernon was not listed among those in attendance. It was a week later, on Feb. 26, the board received the Upland petition and mostly just set a March 12 hearing. The night before that March 12 meeting San Bernardino got two inches of rain, and flooding was widespread in the county. There were no reports of rail lines being cut, however. The storm apparently didn't prevent anyone from getting to the hearing, as Upland supporters, including Vernon, and opponents attended. The next day, the board set the May 5 cityhood election. Cityhood formally came 100 years ago today. There's no denying Vernon was a force in Upland. He was elected to the first board of trustees, the early City Council, was mayor from 1910-12, and also a school board member. On the 50th anniversary of cityhood, Upland held a poll for the outstanding Uplander of its first half-century, and Vernon was the winner. So did Vernon, who died in late 1956, have a bad memory when he talked to Belden, or had the passage of time just exaggerated his role in his mind? We'll never really know. When I first reported this tale in late 2000, I got a call from a reader complaining that while it was right to correct errors in historical facts, I had just ruined a good story. No disputing that.