San Bernardino's Veterans Day Salute & Parade lands on Saturday, November 7, and the city has given it a longer name this year: the Veterans Day Salute & Parade & Route 66 Centennial Celebration. The event takes up Mt. Vernon Avenue between 5th and 9th Streets. The city's listing runs the day from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., but the Route 66 part runs on a shorter schedule. The classic cars leave at 2 p.m., and the best stops on the old corridor open early and close early. Anyone who shows up after lunch gets the park and misses most of the centennial.
The car display closes two hours before the party does
The day is free and open to all. The city's Eventbrite listing sets the parade at 9 a.m., starting at 16th Street and Mt. Vernon Avenue. It heads south and ends at La Plaza Park, 685 North Mount Vernon Avenue. The parade entry application describes the route as about a mile long.
The car display has its own rules. Under the city's car display application, vehicles check in at 8 a.m., must be parked and set up by 9 a.m., and stay on display from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Owners can't leave before 2 p.m. unless event staff direct them to in an emergency. The park celebration starts later and runs longer. Here's the day in order:
- 8 a.m. Display vehicles check in. Mitla Cafe opens its doors for Saturday service.
- 9 a.m. The parade leaves 16th Street, and the car display opens.
- 10 a.m. The San Bernardino History & Railroad Museum opens at the Santa Fe Depot.
- 10:30 a.m. La Plaza Park opens with local vendors, live entertainment and family activities.
- 2 p.m. The car display ends.
- 3 p.m. The depot museum closes.
- 4 p.m. Festivities end. Food booths have to stay open until then or until they sell out.
Between 10:30 a.m. and 2 p.m., everything is open at once. Before that, the parade gets the street. After 2 p.m., it's mostly park time.
One schedule conflict to know about. A Route 66 story map from the San Bernardino County Transportation Authority lists this event at 6:30 a.m. That's the vendor check-in time in the city's vendor packet. For spectators, 9 a.m. is the time to plan around.
Why the cars are on Mt. Vernon this fall
November 7 is the last stop in a run of fall events. In late September, the city announced a Mt. Vernon Bridge 1-Year Anniversary & Route 66 Centennial Block Party for September 26. It called that party the first of two major city Route 66 centennial celebrations, with the November event as the finale. In between came the 13th annual Rendezvous Back to Route 66 downtown on October 10. The San Bernardino Sun reported that the San Bernardino Area Chamber of Commerce and the city presented it.
The location has real history behind it. The transportation authority's Route 66 story map marks the city's Route 66 roads as Foothill Boulevard and Mt. Vernon Avenue from I-215 to W. 5th Street. The event area starts at 5th and runs north to 9th, so the festival sits just above the mapped segment. The original road runs south from there, over the bridge toward the depot.
The parade passes Route 66 landmarks before it reaches the park. The California Historic Route 66 Association lists the Oasis Motel sign at 1488 N. Mt. Vernon as a San Bernardino point of interest. Only the sign is left, and the route heads south past that address on its way down from 16th Street.
A 1937 dining room on the same stretch
La Plaza Park is at 685 N. Mt. Vernon. Mitla Cafe is at 602 N. Mt. Vernon, so it's on the same stretch of the avenue as the festival. In its July piece on eating along Route 66, the San Bernardino Sun reported that Lucia Montaño and her husband Vincente founded the restaurant in 1937. Vincente worked for the Santa Fe Railroad. The Sun also reported that Lucia's descendants still own and run it. In the same article, the Sun called the restaurant one of the best-known landmarks on the Mother Road and showed photos of a full dining room in late May.
Mitla's website lists Saturday hours of 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. It's closed Mondays and opens at 9 a.m. Tuesday through Thursday. On a parade Saturday, that means breakfast an hour before the route fills, or a late lunch after the cars leave. The hours on the site aren't dated, so check them before you build the morning around them.
South of 5th, the bridge and the rail yard
The Santa Fe connection carries from Mitla's founding story down to the bottom of the avenue. The Mt. Vernon Avenue Bridge spans W. 2nd to W. 4th Streets. A federal historic-resources evaluation says it was first built in 1907 and rebuilt in 1933 and 1934. The same review ties it to Route 66's role as a major transportation corridor through San Bernardino. In its September announcement, the city said the bridge had reopened a year earlier after a major rehabilitation, and it held the first centennial party right on the span.
Past the bridge is the Santa Fe Depot at 1170 W. Third Street, home of the San Bernardino History & Railroad Museum. The museum lists Saturday hours of 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. with free admission, parking and tours. The transportation authority's depot history says the current building opened July 15, 1918. It replaced an 1886 wooden depot that burned in 1916, and it reopened after rehabilitation in 2004. The museum closes at 3 p.m., an hour after the car display ends. Go early in the day or after the cars, but before mid-afternoon.
What's still open on the calendar
For anyone thinking about entering a car, registration closes Monday, November 2. Under the city's car display application, the fee is $15 per vehicle, and registration isn't complete until the payment and paperwork arrive. Vehicles must be currently registered, street legal and insured. Applicants send a signed application, current registration and proof of liability insurance, and there's no day-of registration. Classes run from Pre-1949 through 2010-Present, plus Truck, Motorcycle, Custom/Modified and Other. A newer car still qualifies. The Eventbrite listing points car owners to the city's Route 66 Centennial page to register, since a general admission ticket doesn't enter a vehicle.
The parking and closure plan the city published for the September 26 bridge party applied only to that event, so check city channels for November 7 street closures, detours and spectator parking before heading out. The parade application says accepted entrants get staging and logistics about two weeks before the parade, so public details may come late. For questions before then, the Parks, Recreation & Community Services Department is at (909) 998-2750 or [email protected].
If November 7 has you thinking about which corridors you want to be a short walk from, Dina Gonzalez would be glad to talk it through with you. Register for Your Visit.
