USA > California > Riverside County > History of San Bernardino and Riverside counties, Volume I > Part 34
USA > California > San Bernardino County > History of San Bernardino and Riverside counties, Volume I > Part 34
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Euclid Avenue, 200 feet wide and ten miles long, double driveway, lined with trees and flowers and extending to the foothills, is the pride of Ontario and other localities adjacent. It reaches out towards the shadows of Old Baldy (Mt. San Antonio), where is a beautiful resort.
But Ontario's greatest pride is the Chaffey Union High School, composed of Alta Loma, Central, Cucamonga, Etiwanda, Fontana, Moun- tain View, Ontario, Piedmont, Rochester and Upland Elementary School Districts, with a grand total valuation of $12,631,825.00. The founders of Ontario colony were desirous that the colony should rank as an educa- tional center. They accordingly set aside twenty acres of land at the corner of Fourth and Euclid Avenue and in 1883 established on this site the institution known as Chaffey College.
The college fulfilled the purpose of its creation by affording proper educational advantages to the community until the year 1901, when the Ontario High School District organized. From that year until 1909 the High School occupied the Chaffey building by arrangements with the trustees of the property. In 1909 the Board of Trustees of the Ontario
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High School purchased from the trustees of the Chaffey property a tract of five acres, upon which was erected a new high school building. In May, 1911, the citizens of Ontario and Upland voted by a large majority to form a union high school district to be named Chaffey Union High School District.
Recognizing in this important educational movement the fulfillment of the desires of the colony, the trustees of Chaffey College transferred to the Chaffey Union High School District the remaining eight acres of the Chaffey College campus, an endowment fund of $80,000.00 and a per- petual lease upon an orange grove to be used as an experimental orchard in the Agricultural Department. August 25, 1911, the sum of $200,000.00 was voted for the erection of new buildings. In June, 1920, the district voted $275,000.00 in bonds. Chaffey High School now occupies a group of buildings composed of the Liberal Arts Building, the Science Building, the Auditorium and Library Building, the Manual Training Shops, the Greenhouse and Lathe House, the Plunge and Gymnasium.
The Chaffey School exists through the generosity of the citizens and covets the opportunity to show its helpfulness to the district, and through the cordial co-operation of school and people it has come to be a social center for the entire community. Chaffey is accredited by the University of California.
Chaffey Library, for which the school is greatly indebted to the gen- erosity of George Chaffey and his son, A. M. Chaffey, now contains fifteen thousand volumes; the reading room is open to the use of the community. The Library has an endowment of $80,000.00.
The Department of Agriculture was organized in September, 1911, and now has several hundred students. The school owns 110 acres of land and cultivates 92 acres. There are 12 acres of citrus, 60 acres of deciduous and 20 acres devoted to dairying. Three years ago there were purchased for school use 20 acres on Euclid Avenue. The farm is stocked with purebred Holstein dairy cows, with purebred Poland China, Duroc Jerseys and Berkshire hogs, which will be used in connection with the dairy and animal industry work of the department. The poultry plant has a capacity for 1,000 fowls. The Agricultural Department several years ago undertook the beautification of the campus grounds ; this has assumed the nature of a project department and has been the basis for instruction in landscape gardening.
At a regular meeting of the Board of Trustees of Chaffey High School District, held Friday, August 11, 1916, a resolution was passed which definitely established a junior college for the district. This was in accordance with an act of the California Legislature, which states:
"The high school of any school district may prescribe post-graduate courses of study for graduates of high schools, which courses of study shall approximate the studies prescribed in the first two years of uni- versity courses." The junior college has been a success from the very beginning.
The actual number of students in both schools is 2,700. Valuation of properties : Sites, $85,000.00; buildings, $448,500.00; equipments, $72,200.00; Library, $18,000.00; text books, $10,000.00. Total, $633,- 700.00. Total income, $229,708.62. Total expenditures, $191,324.72. Board of trustees: Edward C. Harwood, president, of Upland ; Howard R. Berg, clerk, Ontario; C. C. Graber, Ontario; T. W. Nisbet, Upland ; J. C. Jones, Etiwanda. Merton E. Hill, B.S., A.M., principal, and a faculty of seventy-four, all working in co-operation with the trustees.
The country around Ontario is devoted to general farming, alfalfa, stock raising, dairies, etc., on a large scale. There is an acreage of some
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12,000 in grapes, which are profitable. Ontario is the home of the Hot- point electric appliances manufactured by the Edison Electric Appliance Company and is employing 700 people and is doubling its present size and capacity.
On January 12, 1910, the following item appeared in the San Ber- nardino Sun: "On January 12, 1883, the first residence was built in Ontario. It was put up by I. W. Whitaker, who now resides at No. 125 West D Street. Mr. Whitaker was troubled with asthma and in looking about for a desirable place to live, one morning met John W. Calkins, who told him of Ontario. It was Calkins' nurseries which furnished the trees that now grace beautiful Euclid Avenue and other streets of the city. Ontario had been much advertised by the Chaffeys, but there was no one living in the place, and so Calkins advised Mr. Whitaker to see Ontario and gave him directions how to reach the Chaffey camp. There being no railroad station at Ontario, visitors had to take the trains at Pomona or Cucamonga; Mr. Whitaker chose the latter. This was on December 27, 1882.
"He reached the Chaffey office and camp, where he met William Chaffey, who took him for a ride over the place and finally selected a strip of land on Fifth Street, then returned to Los Angeles, where he purchased a team and tools. On January 11 Mr. Whitaker arrived in Ontario, equipped for building on his ten-acre lot, but it was no easy matter for Mr. Chaffey to find the stakes on account of the sage brush, but finally succeeded in locating the Whitaker place. The first domicile was in the shape of a tent, but at the end of two months lumber was secured and a house erected. Thus began the settlement of Ontario, the 'City That Charms.'"
CHAPTER XIX
CHINO
In a former chapter of this work the earlier history of the Chino Rancho has been outlined. Following the death of Col. Isaac Williams, the rancho became the property of his daughter, Francesca, the wife of Robert Carlisle. After Carlisle met his death at Los Angeles, in 1865, the estate was managed for several years by Joseph Bridger, son-in-law of Colonel Williams, who was guardian of the Carlisle heirs, and about 1874 was mortgaged to Los Angeles parties, into whose hands it eventu- ally passed.
The Rancho del Santa Ana del Chino, and "Addition to Santa Ana del Chino," were purchased in 1881 by Richard Gird, who at once took pos- session and began making improvements. Mr. Gird purchased additional lands, until his holdings included 47,000 acres, and for a number of years devoted the rancho to the raising of stock. In 1887, 23,000 acres of this rancho were surveyed into ten-acre tracts and a town site one mile square was laid out. Mr. Gird at once built a narrow-gauge road from Ontario and erected a large store building of brick. He likewise established a newspaper plant, and the Chino Valley Champion made its first appear- ance November 11, 1887, subsequently becoming a strong force in the upbuilding of the town. Colonel Wasson, its first editor, was succeeded in 1901 by Edwin Rhodes. During 1888 the Pomona & Elsinore Railroad was incorporated, and, as it was surveyed through Chino, it was con- fidently expected that it would be built immediately and would ultimately become the main belt of the Southern Pacific to San Diego. In the same year the Chino Valley Manufacturing Company was incorporated and proposed to erect extensive rolling mills, the iron to be supplied from the newly discovered beds at Daggett. The prospects for the company seemed bright, but the collapse of the boom carried it under. By 1889 Chino, including both town and colony, was being supplied with abundant water from artesian wells. The town had about sixty children of school age, with a daily average attendance of about forty, in a new and well-equipped school building. The Congregationalists and Baptists were holding regular weekly services, with a well-attended Sunday school, and the town like- wise had a daily mail and Wells Fargo Express service, a good news- paper, a hotel, up-to-date stores and three daily trains over the Chino Valley Railroad between Chino and Ontario.
It was about this time that Mr. Gird began experimenting with beet growing for sugar and so successful were his efforts that in 1890 the Oxnard Brothers decided to build the Chino Beet Sugar Factory. Build- ing operations were at once started, and despite the fact that the earlier construction was demolished in a terrific windstorm, beet sugar making was started August 21, 1891, in this plant. The building of the factory gave new life to Chino and the vicinity, as the raising of beets and the factory itself gave employment to a large number of men and distributed large sums of money among the settlers.
In 1891 the Southern Pacific put in a track from Ontario, and about 1896 purchased the narrow gauge road to Pomona, in 1898 changing its main line so that through traffic passed through Chino. Mr. Gird erected the Opera House Block in 1892 at a cost of $11,000. and other buildings followed rapidly. When the county seat fight was staged. Chino took an active part, and was a strong supporter of the proposed San Antonio
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County, with its eastern limit including Etiwanda and the western line extending to Azusa, and with "either Pomona, Ontario or Chino as the county seat."
Although a considerable acreage of the rancho had been sold off, a large area was still being used at this time as a stock range, the fine pasturage and the beet pulp from the factory giving unusual facilities for the fattening of stock for the market. Much of this live stock was brought from Arizona, and in this way was gained the interest of Vail & Bates, cattlemen, who in 1895 established a dairy and creamery, where was made an excellent grade of butter. In 1896 the Puente Oil Com- pany, which had contracted to supply the sugar plant with fuel, estab- lished a refinery at Chino, the oil being piped from the company's wells at Puente. Tanks with a capacity of 15,000, stills, coolers and a complete plant, were installed, these furnishing 250 barrels of crude oil daily. The refuse was used by the engines of the factory.
It would be an impossibility to follow all the changes in ownership and the litigation concerning the Chino Rancho property that have occurred On November 25, 1894, the newspapers announced the largest land deal ever consummated in the County of San Bernardino, this being the transfer of 41,000 acres of Chino Rancho to Charles H. Phillips of San Luis Obispo County for a consideration named as $1,600,000, which included the narrow-gauge road and the water rights. In April, 1896, the rancho was again sold, this time to an English syndicate, who placed the land upon the market in small tracts. Since that time changes, trans- fers, mortgages and foreclosures have followed one another, but the Town of Chino and the surrounding country have continued to develop.
EDUCATION. The New Chino School District was set off from Chino District in August, 1888, and since that time the latter has been renamed the Pioneer District. Mr. Gird erected a neat schoolhouse, which was opened in September, 1888, with eighty pupils enrolled, but by 1891 the accommodations were found to be inadequate, and an enlargement was made of the school, the district at that time having 169 census children. By 1894 the census children had increased to 373 and the employment of eight teachers was necessary, and in that year Mr. and Mrs. Gird, with the Sugar Company, erected the Central School building, a brick struc- ture with four rooms, a library, halls and all arrangements necessary for a modern institution of learning. In 1895 Chino District voted bonds for $2,000 to build two additional schoolhouses, one to be located in East Chino and the other in West Chino. The Chino High School District was organized in 1897, $20,000 being voted for a building, and accord- ingly an addition was made to the Central School building, which gave the district six grammar rooms and two high school rooms, all well arranged and furnished. The school was opened in the fall of the same year, under the name of the Richard Gird High School, and has since been duly accredited by the State University.
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CHURCHES. On May 11, 1888, a Swedish Baptist Church was organ- ized at Chino and for several years held regular services in the school- house, but later secured a building of its own.
The first English service was held at Chino in November, 1888, and later arrangements were made for the Congregational minister to preach twice a month.
A Methodist Church was organized at Chino in 1892, and now holds regular services in its own place of worship.
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THE BEET SUGAR FACTORY. In spite of the fact that the Alvarado factory, the pioneer beet sugar factory in the United States, had been in successful operation in the northern part of California for twenty years, it had been believed that the climate of Southern California was too mild to bring out the saccharine qualities of the beet sufficiently to make beet raising for sugar a profitable industry. However, Richard Gird of the Chino Rancho, after studying the subject and conducting a number of experiments, believed that the matter warranted a thorough trial, and accordingly, about 1887, brought Henry T. Oxnard to California to investigate the possibilities. Mr. Oxnard, in turn, brought Augustin Desprez, an expert, from France, and these gentlemen became satisfied not only that the beets could be raised, but that they possessed an unusu- ally high percentage of sugar. Mr. Gird made the most liberal conces- sions and as a result a contract was signed, December 18, 1890, for the erection of the Chino Beet Sugar Factory. By the terms of this con- tract Mr. Gird granted the comopany 2,500 acres of land, agreed to supply water, contracted to furnish 2,250 acres of beets the first year, 4,000 acres the second year and 5,000 acres the three succeeding years, and stipulated that the company was to have the factory ready for operation for the beet crop of 1891, and that it operate for at least five years.
The work of construction was commenced immediately, and August 20, 1891, Mrs. Gird touched the button that set the machinery in motion. The plant was equipped with the latest and most complete machinery, twenty-eight carloads of which had been imported from abroad, and August 22d, at 4 P.M., was sacked the first granulated and refined sugar ever made in Southern California. From the start the enterprise was a great success, and by 1897 the factory was running 151 days on 97,197 net tons of beets, that contained an average of 1512 per cent sugar and yielded 24,303,000 pounds of standard granulated sugar. There were harvested for the mill 9,628 acres out of the 10,000 contracted for, and $420,000 was paid to the farmers for their beets.
So successful was the Chino factory that the Alamitos plant in Orange County and the Oxnard factory in Ventura County followed afterward.
The original cost of the Chino plant was put at about $600,000, but various additions and changes have been made since, which brings the outlay up to a greatly increased figure. The plant was later taken over by the American Beet Sugar Company, which also owns various other factories, including those at Oxnard, California; Rocky Ford, Colorado, and Grand Island and Norfolk, Nebraska.
CHAPTER XX
HIGHLAND
The fertile table lands forming the northeast boundary of the San Bernardino Valley, and situated several hundred feet above the valley basin in the thermal, or frostless belt, comprise the section known as Highland, a narrow belt of foothill slopes skirting the southern base of the San Bernardino Range and extending westward over ten miles from the gorge of the Santa Ana. The Highland district is divided into topographical lines into what is known locally as Highland, West High- lands, and East Highlands, of which the first is the most important. occupying about four square miles of the central portion. This is an unbroken plateau inclining to the southwest and varying in altitude from 1,300 to 1,600 feet, and its appropriate name was conferred upon it in 1883, when the school district was formed by W. T. Noyes, W. H. Randall, and others.
Probably the first white man to occupy this territory was Walter A. Shay, Sr., who came to California in 1846, and who in 1856 built a small house near the mouth of City Creek Canon, where he resided for several years. A later settler was Goodcell Cram, who during the early '60s took up a Government claim west of City Creek and north of what is now Highland Avenue. Later John E. Small bought the east half of this property, and it later passed into the hands of C. Allen, W. H. Randall and W. T. Noyes. In addition to those mentioned, other early settlers were George Miller, J. S. Loveland, Mathew Cleghorn, C. D. Haven, David Seeley and W. R. Ingham. As in other communities, the first improvements made by the early settlers were primitive in char- acter. The pioneers, as a rule, had little capital, and their prospects for making a living on these dry lands were not of a very encouraging nature. In spite of this, during the decade between 1870 and 1880, water commenced to be utilized on the plateau and there began to per- meate the minds of the settlers that the combination of water and alluvial soil might be worth looking into as to possibilities.
In January, 1872, W. R. Ingham, who had come from New York State in 1870, bought a tract of 120 acres which he set out to citrus trees, the first planted on this side of the valley. He later sold this land to David Seeley and others and it developed into one of the finest orange- producing properties in the locality. In 1874 Mr. Ingham bought a ten- acre tract on which he resided for a quarter of a century, and planted about six acres of it to orange trees. For the first year or two he hauled water from Harlem Springs, two miles away, to keep his young grove alive, but then hit upon the plan of digging an earth ditch to bring the waters of City Creek upon his land, and was the first to so utilize the waters of this stream. During the next few years several tracts were set out to seedling oranges, but there was never a very large acreage devoted to seedlings at Highland. The first Navel trees in the com- munity were also planted by Mr. Ingham, who, in 1878, secured the buds from the original Washington Navel trees at Riverside. A year or two later he purchased some of the Australian trees from a Los Angeles nurseryman at $5 each. These pioneer orchards having proven that oranges could be cultivated profitably at Highland, and the facilities for irrigation having been greatly increased, the community enjoyed a boom in citrus fruit planting between 1880 and 1890, and when it was fully
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demonstrated that the citrus fruit raised here was of an especially fine quality, the deciduous orchards and vineyards of former years began to be gradually displaced by orange groves. With the passage of the years this has become almost entirely an orange and lemon-growing community.
IRRIGATION. Irrigation in the Highland district may be traced hack as far as 1858 when Louis and Henry Cram constructed an earth ditch three miles in length from the mouth of the Santa Ana Canon to their homestead in what is now East Highlands, this ditch being known as the Cram-Van Leuven ditch because Frederick Van Leuven, another early settler, was interested therein. This ditch was later allowed one-sixth of the flow of the Santa Ana River after much litigation, this being the starting point of the various suits which later caused so much legal business in the courts of the county and state.
At various times water was taken out by other settlers on the north side of the river, and in 1885 there was formed the North Fork Ditch Company, which built a stone cement ditch extending to Palm Avenue, in Highland, a distance of eight and one-third miles, and this consol- idation gave to the North Fork and Cram-Van Leuven interests the ownership of one-half of the flow of the Santa Ana. In 1884, when the Bear Valley Dam was built, it intercepted a part of the flow of the Santa Ana River, and as the bed of that stream is the only available channel by which the water could be brought from the reservoir into the San Bernardino Valley, a contract was signed between the Bear Valley Com- pany and the North Fork Company, whereby the former were granted the right to store water in the reservoir and to use the right of way of the North Fork owners in exchange for a stipulated amount of water to be delivered to the stockholders of the district.
A stone and cement canal was constructed by the Highland Ditch Company in 1887-88 from a point on the Cook homestead in East High- lands around the foothills through Highland, to which was added a pipe-line extension through West Highland to North San Bernardino, and this property later passed into the hands of the Bear Valley Com- pany. During 1883-84 W. T. Noyes and W. H. Randall built a ditch from City Creek to their properties and these ditches, a main and two branch canals, are nearly three miles in length. At East Highlands the water of Plunge Creek is utilized and is conveyed and distributed through open ditches to the lands of the owners; while the orchards of West Highland are partly supplied by the waters of East and West Twin creeks, mainly through pipe-lines.
THE TOWN OF HIGHLAND. The necessity for railroad facilities in the marketing of its citrus fruit becoming evident to the citizens of Highland district, several meetings were held and after a conference the officials of the Santa Fe Railway agreed to bring their line through this section provided they were given a free right-of-way. The sum of $10,000 was raised by voluntary subscriptions on the part of the citi- zens, and in July, 1891, the branch of the Santa Fe, which completed the "kite-shaped" track, was constructed between Redlands and San Bernardino through Highland, thus giving direct transportation facil- ities and connecting Highland with East and West Highlands. Around the Highland station a townsite was laid out, and within a short time there were in the course of erection packing houses and other business structures, including all of the appurtenances of a thriving town.
The need for adequate domestic water service resulted in the form- ing. September 28, 1898, of the Highland Domestic Water Company,
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which purchased water-bearing land at the junction of City Creek and Coon Canon on the north side of Highland Avenue, where wells were sunk to a depht of 100 feet in a gravel bed, from which the water was pumped into a stone and cement reservoir, the water being then distrib- uted through more than nine miles of dipped steel and iron pipe to the consumers.
In July, 1903, the San Bernardino Valley Traction Company com- pleted an electric line to Highland, connecting the town by trolley with San Bernardino, Redlands and Colton.
THE HIGHLAND POSTOFFICE. For the accommodation of the resi- dents of Highland and vicinity, the Messina postoffice was established in 1887 at the junction of Base Line and Palm Avenue, and the mail was carried by private conveyance to and from San Bernardino for five years, the postoffice being located for the most part of that time in the store at that point, where the proprietor acted as postmaster. When the railroad was completed, the mail service was transferred to the road. and June 1, 1899, the office was removed to the corner of Palm and Pacific avenues, the site of the new town. The name had been changed, January 1 of that year, upon petition of the citizens, from Messina to Highland. On July 1, 1901, free rural delivery was established with two routes through territory tributary to the town, and the service has been improved each year since that time. The office was advanced to third class July 1, 1902.
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