A Brief History of Fontana, CA

The earliest recorded landowner in the Fontana area was Don Antonio Maria Lugo, who received a land grant in 1813. A second land grant secured the land known as Rancho de San Bernardino for his songs. The Lugo sons sold a portion of their land, which included what is now Fontana, to a group of Mormon settlers in 1851. The Mormon settlers eventually returned to Salt Lake City, and the Semi Tropical Land & Water Company obtained control of the Rancho. However, active development of the land did not begin until the early 1900s when the Fontana Development Company acquired the acreage and began a community called Rosena, which was later named Fontana in 1913.