Ontario City Map Poster

About Ontario

At the time of Mexican and later of American settlement, active Native American settlements were scattered across the entire valley. Remains of a Serrano village were discovered in the neighboring foothills of the present-day city of Claremont. The Chaffey brothers left their families in Ontario (then known as "Junction") in 1881, and traveled by train to San Bernardino where they then had a two-hour wagon ride to their new home site on land purchased from Manuel Nieto. They raised wheat and grapes along with some vegetables, then began to build what would become an important center for agriculture once water from nearby mountains was diverted into man made canals called acequias which still exist today at Mill Creek Park near downtown Ontario.