Not quite the desert, but Cucamonga was on the border. At the end of the 1960s and early 1970s, Route 66 was still the way to or from the great Mojave, from where I grew up in the San Gabriel Valley.
I remember many trips to Cucamonga to explore the abandoned stone houses of early homesteaders, and watching the purple winery trucks taking grape pickers to and from the vineyards along Foothill Boulevard, which was still very much a country road.
At the time, the Virginia Dare Winery at the corner of Foothill Boulevard and Haven Avenue, near where this photo was taken, was still in ruins, the result of several suspicious fires, including one that made the huge Italian themed building the perfect setting for filming episodes of the popular TV show, “Combat.”
Photo ops meant a manual focus camera 35mm with a separate light meter, loaded with Ektachrome or Kodachrome, and a follow-up afternoon spent in a darkroom.
When the Ontario Motor Speedway opened in 1970, I was out there even more often. NASCAR, USAC, AMA races and more made it a destination.
Noise was not a factor at all, since the nearest houses and businesses were miles away, and you could hear open piped race cars echo against the mountains.
Trivial fact: My very first date in high school was an awkward teen-fueled trip to the inaugural California 500 Indy car race at the track. Still have the program too, but not the girl.
Cucamonga became Rancho Cucamonga when the three unincorporated communities of Alta Loma, Cucamonga, and Etiwanda officially incorporated to form the city of Rancho Cucamonga in November 1977.
The Ontario Motor Speedway closed in December 1980. It was demolished in 1981 after being sold to Chevron Land and Development Company for real estate development.
Now, when I drive through Rancho Cucamonga on rare trips out of the desert, I can still see the vineyards and open spaces with grazing sheep and Basque herders in their small trailers. In my imagination, of course.
I took this photo in 1971, using a Canon 35 mm camera when he was doing wet photography. Almost every inch of the land you see in this photograph is now concrete asphalt and steel.
You might know it better as Victoria Gardens.
Taken around Foothill and Rochester, when getting stuck in Rancho Cucamonga meant a long, lonely wait for someone to come by and find you.
Virginia Dare Winery, 1984.
“If you travel on Route 66 to Haven Avenue, you can’t miss her. She’s been standing on the same northwest corner for 75 years. ”
While I was a student at Chaffey College in 1984 I covered a story about the Virginia Dare Winery. It was featured in the school newspaper.
“Abandoned since 1960, she survived mysterious fires that swept through her in 1964, and in 1969. She even survived floods which devastated much of San Bernardino County.”
At the time, plans called for saving the grape-crushing building in the back to be used as a museum dedicated to the history of the Virginia Dare Winery. It would contain many mementos owned by Sam Elder, whom I interviewed. Elder was possibly the only person around with first hand knowledge.
They lied.
Instead, Virginia Dare Winery became a business center, featuring professional and medical offices. Only the bell tower remains as its focal point.
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Grew up in Cucamonga. Now, it’s Rancho Cucamonga ( once we got a Mc Donalds, they got pretentious). I remember going to the winery to watch “Combat” being filmed and, I think “Rat Patrol”. Saw William Conrad there as they were filming an episode of “Cannon”. I wish there were pics of the Bank of America building on Foothill and Archibald. I recall it being somewhat gothic in architecture. My buddies and I would ride our bikes to the top of Archibald and coast however many miles straight down. Lived over by Sweeten Hall when they used to have Donkey Baseball games. Baseball played on donkeys. Weird. I would walk to Central School and go past the orange grove with my Mom’s admonition, “Be careful of the hobos!”, because they would gather ’round the smudgepots in the morning and were not to be trusted. I think it was the flood of ’68 that took out the Thomas Bros Winery as well as the bowling alley (Kon Tiki?). Hellman became an untraversable river. I just remember that for weeks afterwards we would go downstream and find all kinds of cool stuff. We thought bowling pins were cool. The hobos and winos took all the bottles of booze. I think we scavenged a trashed pinball machine. Back then, Carl, of “Carl’s Liquor” knew all of the kids by name. We would buy our candy at Ted Vath’s Cucamonga Drug on Archibald. Various sundries at T,G&Y that was two doors down from Mayfair Market on Foothill. Mayfair Market sold Mother’s Pride soda in glass gallon jugs. My Dad would take me with him to use the tube tester in the store when the TV acted wonky.
Thanks so much for your interesting comments!