About Upland

Upland is a city in San Bernardino County, California, located at an elevation of 1,242 feet (379 m). As of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 73,732, up from 68,393 at the 2000 census. It was incorporated on May 15, 1906, after previously being named North Ontario. Upland is located at the foot of the highest part of the San Gabriel Mountains. The city is part of the Inland Empire, a metropolitan area situated directly east of the Los Angeles metropolitan area.

Upland originally was an irrigation colony established by George and William Chaffey. When founded, it was a small rural town based on agriculture, specifically citrus fruits and grapes.

A trolley line in the broad, tree-lined median of Euclid Avenue formerly connected Upland to the Southern Pacific Railroad line in Ontario. The trolley was pulled from Ontario to Upland by a mule, which then climbed aboard an attached trailer for the ride back down.

Present-day Upland maintains many of the same features, most specifically Euclid Avenue (the north-south, tree-lined street that runs through town) as well as many of the older, adobe and ranch-style houses.

California became part of the United States at the end of the Mexican American War in 1846, and American settlers began to arrive in California in large numbers with the California Gold Rush of 1849. The Cucamonga Rancho changed hands several times, but the area that present-day Upland occupies was little more than an uninhabited ranchland and a place to pass through until the arrival of George Chaffey in 1882. Chaffey, a Canadian shipbuilder from the province of Ontario, had already established the Etiwanda irrigation community in 1881, irrigating the land with a series of flumes carried water from the mountains to a reservoir from which water would then be sent to the relative land sites. In 1882, Chaffey purchased 6,216 acres of land in the Cucamonga Rancho, along with significant water rights from San Antonio Creek, for $60,000. Additional purchases brought the size of the land to over 8,000 acres of land for a total purchase price of $90,000.