Above: Mountain Avenue in Ontario looking north. Bellevue Cemetery left center of picture.

Mountain view from grape vineyards in the San Bernardino/Highland area.

Book Info:
10 ISBN: 1-932173-07-2
13 ISBN: 978-1932173-079
12 x 12 inches
156 pages - Hardcover
$29.95
Code: 173072
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Excerpt: Introduction

The tale of the Inland Empire can perhaps be best illustrated in the lives of two women who arrived in Riverside in the 1890s. Both women were products of solid Canadian stock. Both had married and left for an uncertain future thousands of miles from home in what was then not much more than a wilderness inland from the Pacific Coast. Tragedy struck one family and financial security and social prominence were accorded the other. One family was white, the other African American. The offspring of both women served their communities well.

Helen Maxwell, the daughter of Thomas and Ellen Wagner Maxwell, was born in 1872 in Osnabruck, Ontario, Canada. She could trace her German roots to Loyalist soldiers who fought for the British during the Revolutionary War. The Maxwell family made their home in Morrisburg and became active in the St. James Anglican Church. When Helen was about twenty-two years old, she met William Grant Fraser, a native of Invernesshire, Scotland, who was ten years her senior. William had already seen much of the world including Lake Elsinore and the city of Riverside, California. In 1890, he decided to make Riverside his permanent home, where he worked as a bank cashier. On a visit to Morrisburg, he met and fell in love with Helen. They were married in 1894 in Morrisburg, and the Frasers quickly left the harsh Canadian winters for the sunny climate of Riverside.

Helen Fraser would have two daughters, Frances and Ruth. Frances would graduate from Vassar College and take her master’s degree at Columbia University. In 1923, she would join the faculty at Riverside Junior College, later becoming Dean of Women. Helen died at the age of seventy-eight in her Rubidoux Drive home.

Emma Jane Gray was the daughter of runaway slaves, who had reached Toronto, then York, in Ontario, Canada, through the Underground Railroad. Emma was born in 1851 in Toronto. She met Alexander Mackey in 1893 and married him. Mackey was nine years older than Emma. He was a runaway slave and had been taught to read and write by his master’s son. Like William Fraser, Alexander Mackey had acquired a lifetime of world experiences and had made his home in Riverside before meeting Emma Gray and taking her as his wife.

Emma Mackey had a daughter, Annie Louisa, and a son, Harvey. Emma died at the age of fortyseven. Alexander, who was a stonecutter at Olivewood Cemetery, was blinded when a stone chip flew into his eye. Both Annie and Harvey attended the Tuskegee Institute. Although Annie did not finish her education due to illness, she became acquainted with Booker T. Washington and George Washington Carver. During World War I, Harvey joined the Army and was attached to the 325th Signal Corps of the 92nd Division, becoming a member of the famed “Buffalo” Division. He completed his studies at Tuskegee after the war. Harvey became a machinist, but could not practice his profession due to racial discrimination. He ultimately worked for the Postal Service and held a real estate license. Annie would later marry and have twelve children, twenty-seven grandchildren, forty-one great grandchildren and five great-great-grandchildren.

Helen Maxwell Fraser and Emma Gray Mackey probably never knew each other, but they had led parallel lives. They found that the Inland Empire proved to be the answer to their hopes and dreams of independence and freedom. They found a country vastly different from their native Canada. And while Emma would not live to see her children live full lives, both women left an indelible imprint in the city of Riverside.

While Fraser and Mackey were raising their families, citrus ruled the region and would remain the leading industry for almost threequarters of a century. Japanese immigrants first worked the groves, primarily in Riverside County, stretching from Corona in the west to Redlands and Yucaipa in the east. Then Mexican Nationals and Mexican Americans entered the fields in great numbers during World War I and became the leading workforce in the industry. They forever shaped the character of the Inland Empire and the state. In 2000, Latinos accounted for 30.8 percent of the state’s 34.6 million residents. By 2010, that number is expected to climb to 35.0 percent.

The Inland Empire’s identity has always been a conundrum for the people who lived in the region. It purported in the early 20th century to be California’s paradise and haven for the Eastern snowbirds who wanted to flee relentless winters for a moderate climate, but be away from the already bustling city of Los Angeles fifty miles west. Still, reflecting the rest of the country for most of the century, it marginalized its minority residents. The Inland Empire was not paradise for everyone, but for most folks it came pretty close.

The origins of the “Inland Empire” label have never been entirely clear, although more than anything it was a term was conjured up by real estate developers probably during the first decade of the 20th century to lure potential residents. Evidence of the term dates to April 1914 when the Riverside Enterprise published a “Progress Edition” supplement on high-quality coated paper. The edition chronicled Riverside County’s current issues and its past. To the Enterprise, the “Inland Empire” was confined largely to Riverside County. But in 1920, the San Bernardino Sun made reference to the Inland Empire, implying that the region was confined within the newspaper’s own circulation area. That would limit Inland Empire to the city of San Bernardino and its surrounding communities. In 1992, regional historian Tom Patterson acknowledged in the Riverside Press-Enterprise that there were differing claims to what constitutes the Inland Empire. He suggested, however, that it “comprises roughly the northwest corner of Riverside County and the southwest corner of San Bernardino County, where there are at least 150 Inland Empire firm names in the directories.” Do not tell that to San Bernardino County’s foothill communities of Upland, Rancho Cucamonga, and Fontana, and the Los Angeles County cities of Claremont, San Dimas, Pomona, and La Verne. They, too, consider themselves part of the Inland Empire family. But like the Enterprise’s 1914 newspaper supplement, the Inland Empire, as a marketing gimmick to bring residents and businesses to the area, is what the current crop of marketing experts make it.

The Inland Empire Economic Partnership (IEEP), which serves as the region’s only private, non-profit economic development organization, identifies the Inland Empire as Riverside and San Bernardino counties and a portion of East Los Angeles County, covering 28,000 square miles. That includes Temecula, Victorville, Palm Springs and most of the desert communities in Riverside County. Some desert communities in San Bernardino County do not consider themselves part of the Inland Empire family simply because they do not participate in marketing partnerships to promote the Inland Empire lifestyle.

Whether the “Inland Empire” is a promoter’s dream of luring the masses east from Los Angeles and west from all points east is immaterial. San Bernardino and Riverside Counties’ natural boundaries and characteristics alone demand that they be given their own identity. The Colorado River flows along the eastern borders of both counties. Each share broad deserts and forested mountains. In San Bernardino County, the Mojave Desert reaches altitudes of more than 4,000 feet and includes Victor Valley, the first desert community to start in earnest suburban development. In Riverside County there is the Coachella Valley, which contains the Salton Sea, Palm Desert, and Palm Springs. Mountain ranges hit a high of 11,499 feet with Mt. San Gorgonio in San Bernardino County and the 10,831-foot Mt. San Jacinto in Riverside County.

By the end of the 20th century, 3 million people called the Inland Empire home. Nearly half of the families living within its borders are middle class, with annual incomes ranging between $30,000 and $75,000. The median income of the average family was $41,043 in 2000.

How did the Inland Empire achieve these huge numbers? Transportation was the key. First, the Santa Fe Railway connected the region with metropolitan centers in the east and, of course, Los Angeles. When the railroad arrived and refrigeration methods improved, citrus was shipped east. And, not coincidentally, people took the train west with every intent of living in Los Angeles, but were perfectly content to remain in Riverside and San Bernardino once they caught a glimpse of the majestic mountain ranges and deep valleys. As the region grew, Pacific Electric Railway began building more and more lines, connecting San Dimas and Pomona to Ontario, Fontana, and San Bernardino. What once took a full day of travel, now just took hours. The sprawl east from Los Angeles through Pomona to all points east in the Inland Empire took hold. The main thoroughfare that directly linked Chicago and Los Angeles, via San Bernardino County, was Route 66 and its attendant restaurants, motels and gas stations that serviced roadweary travelers. Route 66 was perhaps the single most important element that brought the car culture to the area.

After World War II, the automobile further influenced migration to the Inland Empire as Southern Californians abandoned public transportation and used their cars. The Ramona Freeway, later Interstate 10, was constructed in 1954. It led to rapid growth and ultimately helped hasten the eventual destruction of the citrus, winemaking, and dairy industries. While old-timers lamented the shift from citrus, wine, and dairy to bedroom communities in which residents flocked to Orange and Los Angeles County jobs, the Inland Empire refused to become stagnated in suburban sprawl.

Rather, the region offered cheap land to major businesses looking to expand but not wanting pay premium prices on property in Los Angeles and Orange Counties. Soon, the Inland Empire, particularly in the western portion of the region, became the land of big-box warehouses. Open land was suitable for world-class distribution sites. Wal-Mart, Kmart, Target, Staples, Home Depot, Mattel, and Honda began leasing warehouses ranging from 763,000 square feet to a whopping 2,702,000 square feet in communities like Mira Loma, Ontario, Rancho Cucamonga, Fontana, and Rialto. But the boom probably would not have happened if the vital link of Interstate 15, that connects the Mexico border with Las Vegas, had not been completed between the 91 Freeway in Corona to Interstate 10 in Ontario.

Once the link was completed in the late 1980s, Interstates 15 and 10 became a distribution hub for major businesses. Warehouses sprang up along I- 15 at a dizzying pace, quickly replacing the once ubiquitous dairy herds. Warehouses and major businesses, including high-technology companies, are the new gold of the Inland Empire. The Washington Navel Orange has been replaced by distribution centers and high-technology businesses.

Helen Maxwell Fraser and Emma Jane Gray Mackey might not recognize the Inland Empire today, but they certainly would appreciate that it continues to be a major player in moving commodities, whether food or auto parts, to every point around the world.