Upland, Route 66 California

About Upland California

Facts, Trivia and useful information

Elevation: 1,237 ft (377 m). Population 79,070 (2025). Time zone: Pacific (MST): UTC minus 8 hours. Summer (DST) PDT (UTC-7).

Upland is the westernmost city located along Route 66 in San Bernardino County in southern California. It is part of the Inland Empire, a metropolitan area located just to the east of the Los Angeles metropolitan area.

A 1950s postcard looking north along N 2nd Ave. and 9th St., Upland CA (See the same view nowadays

The History of the city of Upland, California

For the early history of the area, read the History of Rancho Cucamonga because what is now Upland was an uninhabited part of that ranch until 1882.

In 1882 George Chaffey, a Canadian from Ontario bought more than 8,000 acres of land in the old Rancho Cucamonga -together with water rights from San Antonio Creek. He had previously formed the community of Etiwanda, to the east of Rancho Cucamonga.

He built a main road running north to south through the agricultural community and named it after the Greek mathematician, Euclid. He named the colony "Ontario" after his hometown.

What is now Upland was a part of the Ontario colony, lying along its northern section. It had been developed by the Bedford Brothers, who had named it "Magnolia;" in 1887 the Santa Fe Railroad built a depot there.

The name: Upland

The whole area gradually became known as Upland. The Bedford brothers established the original townsite in 1887 as Magnolia Villa. Later it became known as Upland after the Upland Citrus Association. Gradually the area became known as North Upland and then, Upland, due to the fact that it was located at a higher elevation than Ontario.

Ontario incorporated in 1891 and in 1901, North Ontario decided to incorporate too. The process was decided by the San Bernardino County in 1906, who also adopted the name of Upland for the new city.

The USGS survey along the Santa Fe railroad of 1915 says the following: "At Upland station the railway passes 2 miles north of Ontario, a city on the Southern Pacific Railroad, surrounded by wide areas of orange groves and other products of irrigation. Four miles to the northwest is the mouth of San Antonio Canyon, one of the large canyons in the San Gabriel Mountains, which furnishes considerable water for irrigation. On the plain its bed spreads into half a dozen irregular washes, which are crossed by the train between Upland and Claremont. From the gravel and sand under this plain a large amount of water is pumped for irrigation..."

The National Old Trails highway was aligned along Foothill Blvd in the 1910s, it became the roadway for U.S. Highway 66 when it was created in 1926.sIn recent years, the urban sprawl of LA has expanded and the fields have been developed. Many old Route 66 classics have been razed and replaced with malls or housing developments.

During the 1950s, the LA freeway system grew and diverted traffic away from Route 66 which was replaced here in 1964 as a major highway by the freeways; traffic along Foothill Blvd. dwindled.