CORONA - The developers of Dos Lagos don't want its customers, residents and visitors to think of it just as a shopping center. They prefer the phrase "lifestyle center" to describe Dos Lagos' future mix of stores, restaurants, homes, golf course, twin lakes, hotel and office space.

They could add "historic resource" to the list, since the 543-acre master-planned community on Temescal Canyon Road will have many elements that salute the area's past.

The grand opening of the project's inaugural retail phase, The Promenade Shops at Dos Lagos, will be Oct. 6. The next day, the public is invited to a dedication ceremony that will include free stagecoach rides, a nod to the former route of the Butterfield Overland Stage, which carried mail and passengers along what's now Temescal Canyon Road.

During the Oct. 7 proceedings, SE Corp., the master developer of Dos Lagos, will dedicate a new Butterfield Stage plaque to replace a bronze original that the Woman's Improvement Club of Corona installed 72 years ago along Temescal Canyon Road. In recent years, the historic landmark plaque placed by the organization in 1934 went missing and has never been found.

Its future site will be next to a small citrus grove that developers planted just north of the two lakes, a Dos Lagos element meant to evoke Corona's former nickname of the "Lemon Capital of the World."

Another proposal still in the works is to change the name of the eastern portion of Weirick Road, Dos Lagos' southern boundary. Last month, SE Corp. President Ali Sahabi submitted that request to Riverside County, and it's currently under review, said John Field, chief deputy to Supervisor John Tavaglione, whose district includes Dos Lagos.

The new moniker would be "Dos Lagos Drive," and would apply only to a third-mile stretch of Weirick Road, between Interstate 15 and Temescal Canyon Road, Sahabi said in an Aug. 9 letter to Tavaglione.

Weirick Road was named after Arthur Weirick, a Corona citrus farmer who served on the Riverside County Board of Supervisors and the Western Municipal Water District board of directors.

Weirick died in 1972 at age 78. His obituary in the Corona Daily Independent described him as a World War I fighter pilot who was wounded, shot down and captured by German forces.

In 1919, Weirick returned to his native Montana. He and his wife, Margaret, moved to California in 1923, and the couple settled in Corona 20 years later, buying 72 acres.

In October 1946, County Supervisor Clarence Steves resigned his seat to move to his Placerville ranch in Northern California. Gov. Earl Warren appointed Weirick to complete Steves' unexpired term, according to "Profiles of a Century," a book on Riverside County history. Weirick left the Board of Supervisors in January 1949.

He served on the board of directors for the Western Municipal Water District from 1960 to 1972, said Melodie Johnson, the agency's spokeswoman.

Weirick Road is an entry and exit point off Interstate 15, and as such those ramps would be renamed to Dos Lagos Drive if Riverside County grants Sahabi's request.

The developer also sought the blessing of Weirick's daughter, Corona resident Jean Larson.

"I support the proposed name change based on (the offer) that the Dos Lagos project would include, adjacent to the new lakes, an historical plaque honoring the memory of my late father," Larson wrote in a Nov. 16, 2004, letter to the Corona Department of Public Works.

Corona City Manager Beth Groves said in an Aug. 1 letter to Sahabi that the city has no objection to the proposed name change.

Meanwhile, during the course of excavation, Dos Lagos builders unearthed a boulder that seemed just the right size on which to mount the new Butterfield Overland Stage plaque. The stagecoach made its first trip 148 years ago, departing Tipton, Mo., passing through Temescal Canyon and arriving in Los Angeles on Oct. 7, 1858.

Reach Mary Bender at 951-893-2103 or mbender@PE.com