Ontario tourist information
Ontario is located in Western San Bernardino County, approximately forty (40) miles east of Los Angeles and twenty (20) miles west of San Bernardino on a flat alluvial plain at the base of the San Gabriel Mountains.
The alluvial plain that Ontario sits on was created by the formation and erosion of the San Gabriel Mountains. The mountains were created through the geologic activity of the San Andreas Fault, formed between 12 and 28 million years ago. The alluvial plain slopes south from the San Gabriel Mountains to the Santa Ana River and Santa Ana Mountains. Early people were hunters, using spears and other weapons to hunt their prey. Several other groups lived in the area and the inhabitants immediately prior to the Spanish Colonization were the Gabrielino Indians.
On March 21, 1774, Juan Bautista de Anza was searching for an inland route from Sonora, Mexico to Monterey. His first expedition camped along the San Antonio Creek, near where De Anza Park is today, located at the Southwest Corner of Euclid Avenue and Phillips Street. San Antonio Creek was originally called Arroyo de Los Osos, but by 1776, during de Anza’s second expedition was changed to Arroyo de Los Alisos, for the surrounding Sycamore trees. There was an Indian rancheria called Guapiana, located on the San Antonio Creek on about the same location as Ontario is today. The Mission San Gabriel notes a rancheria that was given various names such as Guapiabit, Guapian, Apiambit, Apiagma.
When the Mission San Gabriel was founded on September 8, 1771, it took title to over 1.5 million acres of land, including what would become Ontario. The El Camino que va a San Bernardino led to San Gabriel from the San Bernardino Rancho lands. This road paralleled what is now Fourth Street and in La Verne met the route from Cajon Pass which went above Eighth Street in Upland.
In 1834, Mexico began turning over mission lands to settlers as land grants. This period is referred to as the Rancho Period. On March 3, 1839, Tiburcio Tapia was given the Cucamonga Rancho, which consisted of what is now Ontario, Upland, Cucamonga, and Etiwanda, with areas of Colton and Fontana. In 1841, Antonio Maria Lugo was deeded the Rancho Santa Ana del Chino, which was comprised of Chino and portion of present-day South Ontario. Lugo’s granddaughter and her husband, John Rains, bought the Cucamonga Rancho from Tapia’s daughter in 1858. By 1882, Captain J.S. Garcia owned portions of the Cucamonga Rancho.
George Chaffey and his brother William Benjamin (W.B.) Chaffey came to Southern California in 1880 to visit their parents who had settled in Riverside. They would not return to Canada.
On Thanksgiving Day in 1881, George and W.B. Chaffey, accompanied by J.C. Dunlap, came to the home of Captain J.S. Garcia. Garcia was one of the best known and loved residents of the San Bernardino Valley. Garcia's home was situated near the intersection of the old Sante Fe Trail and the El Camino Real. After inspecting the water in Middle, Day and Young Canyons, George Chaffey offered to buy 560 acres with the water rights and the Garcia House for $30,000. A month later an additional 80 acres was added, for $1, bringing the total to 640 acres, one square mile. This deal formed Chaffey's first irrigation colony in the area, Etiwanda. Etiwanda is named after an Indian Chief who had established friendly relations with the Chaffey's uncles in Michigan. By the time the colony began selling land, the Chaffey’s had 1,000 acres divided into 10 acre parcels. By 1888, the Etiwanda Colony had grown to 2,500 acres.
George Chaffey’s home (the Chaffey-Garcia House) had the first hydroelectric system in the Western United States, and he installed the first long distance telephone line in the world, connecting his house to San Bernardino, Riverside, Colton, Redlands and Lugonia. Seeing the innovations being constructed in Etiwanda, Los Angeles showed interest in the lighting method Chaffey used. He immediately became involved with the Los Angeles Electric Company. Los Angeles became one of the first cities in the world to have electric lights.
In the Fall of 1882, George and William Chaffey surveyed the plain lying between the San Antonio and Cucamonga Canyons. On April 15, 1882, the Cucamonga Company, owners of the Cucamonga Rancho, granted Captain J.S. Garcia and J.C. Dunlap an option over the portion of the rancho known as the San Antonio Lands. The option was purchased by the Chaffey Brothers in late 1882 for $60,000. The land consisted of 6,216 acres. Together with the Kincaid Ranch, the Chaffey’s founded the Ontario Irrigation Colony, named after their home of Ontario, Canada. "Ontario" itself comes from an Iroquois word for "sparkling water". They then added to the colony lands through the purchase of government and railroad sections of land. The land occupied by the Town of Ontario was bought from Major Henry Hancock.
The settlement of Pomona, 6 miles to the West, claimed the rights to the waters of the San Antonio Canyon, They tried to purchase the option from Captain Garcia, but the Chaffey's offered more money after hearing the offer by Pomona and purchased the option. After long, troublesome negotiations, an agreement was made that gave Pomona the right to half the surface flow from the canyon. The agreement said nothing of, and did not include the subterranean flow. When he created the San Antonio Water Company he reserved the right, at a later date, to use the water for hydroelectric purposes. That right was later transferred to the Ontario Electric Company. Chaffey set up water companies to fairly distribute water to every part of his colony. Every land owner owned 1 share of stock in the water company for every acre of land owned.
The colony had some unique features for the time. Every 10 acre parcel had either street of avenue frontage. George Chaffey laid out a 200 foot wide, grand boulevard, with two, parallel 66 foot roadways, named Euclid Avenue, after his favorite subject, Euclidean Geometry. Parallel avenues were 66 feet wide and laid out at half-mile intervals. Cross streets were laid out at quarter-mile intervals. Street layouts divided the land into eighty (80) acre blocks and were divided into eight (8), ten (10) acre parcels.
The town comprised 340 acres, half of which was deeded to the college as a free endowment, an additional 20 acres were given to the community as a free gift for the college campus. The town's boundaries were roughly the Southern Pacific Railroad tracks on the south, to "G" Street on the north, from Vine Avenue on the West to Sultana Avenue on the East (roughly what Downtown Ontario is today). Town lots along Euclid Avenue were 33' x 150'. Between the ten acre farm lots and the town lots was a belt of Villa lots, two and a half acres each.
In 1883, William Chaffey planted mostly Australian trees, a double row of Pepper and Palm trees in the Euclid Avenue median with Eucalyptus and Grevilleas along the side parkways. The trees were chosen because of their resistance to heat and their drought tolerance. The Palms were later removed. In 1885, Alfred Deakin, Victorian minister of water supply and future Prime Minister of Australia, was in the United States on a fact finding mission, heard about the Chaffey's irrigation colonies and came to Ontario. Impressed by the Ontario Colony, he convinced George and William Chaffey to come to Australia and establish irrigation colonies there. George Chaffey left for Australia in January 1886 followed by William in November 1886 after he recieved a telegram from George directing him to sell their holdings immediately and to join him in Australia.
Charles Frankish led a group of investors and bought out the Chaffey Brothers when they left for Australia. They founded the Ontario Land and Improvement Company and took over the development of Ontario. Frankish extended Euclid Avenue down to Ely Street (now Philadelphia Street) and established the Southside Tracts neighborhood (between Sultana and Vine Avenues, Phillips Street and the Union Pacific Railroad Tracks.
Charles Frankish also founded the Ontario and San Antonio Heights Railway Company. The first trolley, called the "Gravity Mule Car", traveled down the Euclid Avenue median from 24th Street to the Southern Pacific Railroad in 1888. The mules pulled the car up the hill, then were loaded on a pull out platform at the rear of the car, a rode back down the hill. The mule car was replaced in 1895 by electric trolleys and became one of the Pacific Electric Red Car Lines in 1912. The electrification of the trolley line was done by Mr. E.H. Richardson, who invented the "Hotpoint" electric iron in 1905.
Ontario went through a building boom in 1887, when many of the buildings in downtown were built. Several that still exist include Gemmels pharmacy (the Sweet Block), Ritmo Latino (Citizens National Bank), and the Rose Block (immediately north of the bank building).
In 1923, Judge Archie Mitchell, Waldo Waterman, and some other airplane enthusiasts established Latimer Field. From that time on, the town became increasingly aviation conscious. Urban growth pushed the fliers progressively east, until they took up their present location at Ontario International Airport. During World War II this was a busy training center for pilots of the hot Lockheed P-38 "Lightning", Howard Hughes’ twin-boom fighter.
After World War II, Ontario experienced the growth that almost every city in the United States experienced. As early as the 1920’s, Ontario began to become more of an industrial area, and less reliant on it’s agriculture. By the early 1990’s a little over 100 years after the Chaffey’s founded their colony, Ontario had a population of 145,000 and was 37 square miles in area.
On November 30, 1999, the City of Ontario annexed 8,200 acres of the former San Bernardino County Agricultural Preserve. This annexation made Ontario 50 square miles in area. The proposed development for the area would allow 101,000 people to live in the area, making Ontario the largest city in San Bernardino County with a population of approximately 250,000. This new development will allow Ontario to follow the Chaffey’s vision and create a "New Model Colony" for the 21st Century.
Ontario still has many of the original structures that that were built from as early as 1887. The Historic Preservation program's purpose is to protect the significant architectural, historical and cultural resources of Ontario and to preserve the history and traditions of Ontario that made it "The Model Colony".
In the true tradition of the Oregon Trail, all major highways entering Oregon from the east, west, north, and south pass through or near Ontario. It is in this area that Oregon Trail history begins in Oregon.
In 1883, the Oregon Short Line Railroad completed the tracks providing a siding for stock loading. A depot and inn were established and people began to settle in the area. Ontario began as a cattle town, shipping cattle for the outlying ranches in Eastern Oregon and Idaho.
Ontario lies in Malheur County. The name "Malheur" was first given to the river by French trappers who had their furs stolen while camped along the river. "Riviere au Malheure" means Unfortunate River.
Malheur County is the second-largest county in land size in the state, smaller only to Harney County, its immediate neighbor to the west, and is the twelfth largest county in the nation.
Malheur County ranks 22nd in the population of Oregon’s 36 counties.
Ninety-four percent of Malheur County is rangeland, two-thirds of which is controlled by the Bureau of Land Management.
In 1939, the first of five man-made reservoirs was completed, providing water to the sagebrush-covered bottomlands of the Snake River Valley. With an extensive canal and pipeline network to provide a dependable abundant source of water for crop irrigation, the Ontario area began to blossom into the most intensive, diversified row crop farming area in the state, with 375,000 acres of irrigated farm and ranch land.
Wild horses were first i ntroduced by the white man during the early 1800s. Since then, the sage-covered hills of Malheur County have seen wild horse county roundups held by the BLM provide horses for the National Adopt-a-Horse program. Malheur County is no longer the "barren, God-forsaken county," Farnham described. The little oasis in the high desert ranks second in agriculture production in the state
With the coming of sheep to Malheur County, Basque sheepherders from Spain moved into the southern part of the county. Over the years, the Basque community in Malheur County has become integrated into the Oregon culture. Today, descendants of the Basque pioneers are respected leaders in the community.
During World War II, nearby Minidolca, Idaho was a relocation center for Americans of Japanese ancestry. Even though the internment camps were a sad page in American history, Malheur County benefited. Many of the Japanese families remained in the Ontario area and, though most started with little or no money, they have become an integral part of Oregon.
Today, many Mexican-American workers have made permanent homes in the Ontario area. Mexican nationals are currently becoming American citizens and rapidly moving into various positions within the local businesses in the community. Like the pioneers who settled along the Oregon Trail, this ethnic culture has carved a prominent place for itself in our society.
Ontario, with a population of just over 11,000 residents, has grown to be the largest city in Malheur County with more than 1,000 manufacturing, retail and service-oriented businesses.
Weather Malheur County averages 158 frost-free days each year. There is an average mean temperature of 51.8 degrees. The average rainfall is 9.6 inches. Average last spring frost is May 3rd and the average first fall frost is October 7.
by Community Profile Network, Inc
Ontario aerial map
Please click on any icon on the Ontario aerial tourist map, to find close by places, offering hotels and tourist information. You can zoom in and zoom out our touristical map as well as switch between satelite and map view of Ontario.
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