Rancho Cucamonga, CA: Three Old Towns, Route 66, the Epicenter and What to Check Before You Buy a Home

On The Jack Benny Program, a radio train announcer, usually voiced by Mel Blanc, called the train for "Anaheim, Azusa and Cuc-amonga." The City of Anaheim's own history page lists the call in a January 7, 1945 episode. In 1945 and 1946, civic groups in all three towns campaigned to make Benny their honorary mayor. The Cucamonga in that joke was a grape-growing town at the foot of the San Gabriel Mountains, and it was not a city yet. That came in 1977, when Cucamonga, Alta Loma and Etiwanda voted to incorporate together as Rancho Cucamonga.

Rancho Cucamonga is a San Bernardino County city made from three older towns, Cucamonga, Alta Loma and Etiwanda, plus the Etiwanda Heights foothills it annexed in late 2020. The Census Bureau counted 174,453 residents here in 2020, before that annexation added about 6.4 square miles in the northeast.

My Inland Empire page covers the rest of the metro, and my California page has the statewide picture, so this page stays inside the Rancho Cucamonga city limits. I'm Jeff Moran, NMLS #483943, a mortgage broker licensed in California through C2 Financial Corporation, and I have been originating loans since 1996. I work from Bluffton, South Carolina, so I make no first-hand claims about Rancho Cucamonga. Every fact here comes from a public source I checked on November 3, 2026, and I name each one as I go.

Cucamonga, Tapia's rancho and a winery from 1839

On March 3, 1839, Governor Juan Bautista Alvarado granted about 13,000 acres called Cucamonga to Tiburcio Tapia, a Los Angeles merchant. In 1870, San Francisco businessmen bought the land and formed the Cucamonga Company, as PBS SoCal's Lost LA tells the story. The name itself is most often traced to a Tongva word meaning "sandy place," according to Britannica.

Tapia's winery site is California Historical Landmark No. 490, and it claims the title of California's oldest winery. A second marker says the building began as a California Wine Association winery in 1905, and the Thomas family bought it in 1918. Route 66 News reported plans to fit out the Thomas Winery building as a restaurant.

The grape harvest had its own festival here for decades. It began in 1939 as the Cucamonga Wine and Grape Festival, which the Cucamonga Service Club put on in early September to line up with the harvest. The Rancho Cucamonga Chamber of Commerce took it over in 1981 and later moved it to June. In 1987 the state legislature made its billing as California's Oldest Grape Harvest Festival official. The last one I found in the festival's records at the Online Archive of California ran in 2017. By then it was called the Inland Empire Grape Harvest Festival, and it was held at Cucamonga-Guasti Park in Ontario. The city still keeps a page on the historic grapevines at Central Park, the park at 11200 Base Line Road with the community center and senior center.

A 1915 gas station on Route 66, in the road's centennial year

Foothill Boulevard is Route 66 through Rancho Cucamonga. At 9670 Foothill, the Cucamonga Service Station went up in 1915 on a state road that became U.S. Route 66 about ten years later. It closed in the 1970s, and a billboard company later used it for storage. The City Council made it a city historical landmark in April 2009. In 2013, the nonprofit Route 66 Inland Empire California took title, raised about $100,000 and started restoring it.

It reopened in 2015 as a Route 66 museum, restored to its 1930s look as a Richfield station, and it is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, as Route 66 News reported. The California Preservation Foundation gave the restoration a design award in September 2016. Route 66 was designated in 1926, so the road turns 100 this year, and the Rancho Cucamonga Chamber of Commerce listed a Route 66 Centennial Kickoff Celebration among its events.

Etiwanda, the Chaffey brothers and Southern California's first electric lights

On Thanksgiving Day 1881, George and William Chaffey, brothers from Ontario, Canada, bought 1,000 acres from Captain J.S. Garcia and started the Etiwanda colony. They brought water down by concrete pipe from San Antonio Canyon, and the San Bernardino County Sentinel credits George Chaffey with the first concrete irrigation pipe west of the Mississippi. In 1882 he rigged a small dynamo to a paddle wheel in an irrigation ditch and ran an arc lamp on the roof of his home. A historical marker calls those the first electric lights in Southern California.

You can still see some of the old colony in Etiwanda. Wikipedia's Etiwanda article dates the Chaffey-Garcia House to 1874 and calls it the first home built in Etiwanda. The old Pacific Electric station nearby is a city landmark today. It opened on January 25, 1914, on the Upland–San Bernardino Line, and passenger trains stopped running there in 1941.

That old Pacific Electric right-of-way was bought from Southern Pacific in 1991, and today it is the Pacific Electric Inland Empire Trail. TrailLink maps it at about 20 miles, from the Claremont and Upland end to Cactus Avenue in Rialto. Inside Rancho Cucamonga it crosses Vineyard Avenue and meets the Cucamonga Creek Trail.

Alta Loma, Chaffey College and four school districts

The Chaffey brothers founded a college too. Chaffey College's cornerstone was laid in Ontario on March 17, 1883, and the school opened on October 15, 1885. It moved up to Alta Loma around 1960, according to the college's own history.

Alta Loma School District dates to 1885, and it is one of four elementary districts inside the city, along with Central, Cucamonga and Etiwanda. All four feed the Chaffey Joint Union High School District. Its high schools in the city include Alta Loma High, opened in 1963 at 8880 Base Line Road, Etiwanda High, opened in 1983, and Rancho Cucamonga High. The district that serves a home depends on its exact address, so please check each district's own boundary locator for the property you are considering.

Etiwanda Heights, The Resort and the planned communities

The newest part of the city is the top of its northeast corner. In 2020, Rancho Cucamonga annexed 4,085 acres there, about 6.4 square miles, taking the city from about 40 to about 46.5 square miles, as the San Bernardino County Sentinel reported. The city's Etiwanda Heights page puts the total at nearly 47 square miles. The Etiwanda Heights Neighborhood & Conservation Plan, adopted in 2019, guides that land.

The city's page describes the plan as 2,700 to 3,000 single-family homes with no large apartment buildings. In January 2026 the City Council approved an amendment to the plan, and in February a residents' group sued to challenge it, as the Sentinel reported. The mix of homes up there could change, so I'd ask the city's planning department where the plan stands before you buy nearby. Up in those foothills, the North Etiwanda Preserve at 4890 Etiwanda Avenue is run by San Bernardino County Special Districts.

Much of the middle of the city grew from master plans too. Lewis Homes built Terra Vista as a master-planned community, and William Lyon Co. and other builders planned Victoria on 3,959 acres. On a home in one of these planned communities, I'd ask early whether it has association dues or a Mello-Roos line, the special tax a Community Facilities District puts on the tax bill, because both go into your monthly payment. Victoria Gardens, the outdoor town center, opened on October 28, 2004. The Urban Land Institute's case study describes it as a partnership of Forest City, the Lewis Group of Companies and the city's redevelopment agency.

At the south end, Lewis Community Developers is planning The Resort on a former golf course next to the Metrolink station area. The city's 2024 Opportunity Sites booklet allows up to 3,450 apartments, multifamily and single-family homes there. That number is an upper limit, and the city's planning department can tell you how much of it is approved or under way. If you are looking at a home next to open land, the planning department can tell you whether anything is proposed nearby.

The Epicenter, the Quakes and a new name on the ballpark

The Quakes arrived for the 1993 season, and their ballpark opened on April 3 that year as The Epicenter, with 6,588 seats. It carried the LoanMart Field name from 2013 to 2025. On April 3, 2026, 33 years to the day after it opened, it was unveiled as Morongo Field at the Epicenter. CDC Gaming Reports reported that Morongo Casino Resort Spa is the naming partner. The Quakes are an Angels affiliate again in 2026, and the city has an agreement keeping them at the Epicenter for 15 years.

In December 2023, the city adopted the Epicenter Master Plan, a 56-acre area around the ballpark and the sports center planned for shops, restaurants, entertainment, hotels and offices. Each November the city also holds a Founders Day Community Parade. The city's 2024 listing put it on Saturday, November 9, along Jack Benny Drive. The city can give you this year's date and route.

Metrolink now, Brightline West later, and the 210

The Rancho Cucamonga Metrolink station opened on November 1, 1994, on the San Bernardino Line, with platforms at 11208 Azusa Court just west of Milliken Avenue. The city's Cucamonga Station FAQs call it the line's second-busiest station after Los Angeles Union Station. The city adopted its Cucamonga Station Plan for the area in 2016, when Brightline's predecessor, DesertXpress, still planned to end its line in Victorville.

Brightline West now plans to end its Las Vegas line here. In October 2022, the City Council and the San Bernardino County Transportation Authority approved selling 5 acres to Brightline West, as the city announced. The city is also looking for funding for an overflow parking structure. The city's January 2026 fact sheet and other reports give different opening dates. If a future train to Las Vegas is part of why you like a home, I'd check Brightline West's own construction page before counting on one.

For driving, the Foothill Freeway, I-210, opened through the city between Haven Avenue and Day Creek Boulevard in the early 2000s. That puts a freeway close by for the homes along that stretch of the city.

Jobs and medical offices in town

Amphastar Pharmaceuticals has its headquarters at 11570 6th Street, and in July 2025 it announced plans to quadruple its manufacturing capacity there over three to five years, according to its announcement. Inland Empire Health Plan is here too, and REBusiness reported that it leased 207,000 square feet at the Atrium at Empire Lakes. If you work for either one, a home in Rancho Cucamonga keeps your commute inside the city.

For care close to home, Kaiser Permanente's facility page lists its Rancho Cucamonga Medical Offices at 10850 Arrow Route. It is a medical office building for appointments. Kaiser's hospitals are elsewhere, including its Ontario Medical Center on South Vineyard Avenue in Ontario.

San Antonio Regional Hospital is based in Upland. REBusiness reported in 2023 that it bought a 127,000-square-foot office building at 11000 Eucalyptus Street to turn into medical offices. The hospital's locations page now lists 11000 Eucalyptus among its sites, along with its Rancho San Antonio Medical Plaza at 7777 Milliken Avenue.

Electricity from the city or from Edison, and water from the Cucamonga Valley Water District

Etiwanda had Southern California's first electric lights, and today the city runs a small electric utility of its own. Rancho Cucamonga Municipal Utility started in August 2001 and serves a selected area in the southeast part of the city, with more than 3,000 metered customers. Its residential areas include The Enclave, Day Creek Square and The Row & Bungalows, and Victoria Gardens is on it for commercial service. The city says it has kept RCMU's rates below Southern California Edison's since 2004. Edison serves the city outside that area, so it helps to ask the seller which utility serves the home you are looking at.

Water in Rancho Cucamonga comes from the Cucamonga Valley Water District, which is a separate agency from the city government. The district also serves parts of Upland, Ontario and Fontana, according to a staff report from the Local Agency Formation Commission for San Bernardino County. It also handles sewer collection within its boundaries, collecting the wastewater that the Inland Empire Utilities Agency then treats at its regional recycling plants. So the water district is the one to call about water and sewer for a home here.

Property tax and Mello-Roos on a Rancho Cucamonga home

My Inland Empire page explains the 1% base tax and the county's voter-approved debt on top of it. Rancho Cucamonga also forms its own Community Facilities Districts, the Mello-Roos districts, and the city's Special Districts page says the county bills them as separate line items on the tax bill. It names CFD 2000-02 for Rancho Corporate Park, CFD 2000-03 for Rancho Summit and CFD 2004-01 for Rancho Etiwanda Estates. That last one covers park, equestrian, street, water, sewer, storm-drain and school facility bonds. Those are the three the city's page names, and a parcel can carry others too, so I'd work from the home's current tax bill. You can look it up by the home's assessor's parcel number, and each district shows up as its own line.

San Bernardino County's documentary transfer tax is $1.10 per $1,000 of the sale price, and I found no Rancho Cucamonga city transfer tax on top of it.

Fire zones on the foothill side of the city

The state has redrawn its Fire Hazard Severity Zones, the maps that rate wildfire risk, for the land where the city's own fire department is responsible. The State Fire Marshal dated its recommendations for that round of maps March 24, 2025. The city's fire hazard page explains the new zones, shows a heat map of its High fire-hazard areas, and offers the map in person at Fire Headquarters, 10500 Civic Center Drive. For a home on the foothill side, I'd look up the exact parcel on the State Fire Marshal's map and get a homeowners insurance quote before you write an offer. The zone can change what that coverage costs. My Inland Empire page covers the California FAIR Plan and its October 2026 rate change. For flood zones, FEMA's flood map lets you look up the same address.

A Rancho Cucamonga address and your loan

On a Rancho Cucamonga home, the payment a lender qualifies you on carries the parcel's property tax and any city CFD line, such as Rancho Etiwanda Estates. It also carries your homeowners insurance, priced with the fire zone in mind on the foothill side, and any association dues. San Bernardino County's FHA limit for a one-unit home is lower than its conforming limit, which is the largest loan Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will buy. So if your loan amount would be above the FHA limit, an FHA loan won't work for that home, and we would look at a conventional loan instead. The loan limits box on this page shows both figures. FHA loans in California explains how that program works if you are weighing it.

I'd like to see your documents early, so that when you find a home in Alta Loma or near the Etiwanda foothills you already know what you're approved for. Pre-approval in California explains what the letter is based on. If you already own here and want to change your loan, refinancing in California walks through how that works.

Once you're ready, you can run your numbers for a Rancho Cucamonga purchase and see pricing for your scenario along with California closing costs. Choose a rate option that works best for you, and the selection can change as your plans do. The application opens from there. If you'd rather talk it through with me first, please give me a call.

Nothing here is a loan approval, a denial or a commitment to lend, and it is not tax or legal advice. San Bernardino County sets the assessed value and any special taxes on a specific parcel, so please confirm them with the county assessor and the tax collector.

Common questions

Is Alta Loma part of Rancho Cucamonga?

Yes. Alta Loma is one of the three towns, with Cucamonga and Etiwanda, that voted to incorporate together as Rancho Cucamonga in 1977. Alta Loma School District and Alta Loma High still carry the name.

Which school district serves a home in Rancho Cucamonga?

It depends on the exact address. Four elementary districts, Alta Loma, Central, Cucamonga and Etiwanda, serve parts of the city, and all four feed the Chaffey Joint Union High School District. Each district's own boundary locator gives the assignment for a specific property.

Who provides electricity and water in Rancho Cucamonga?

A selected area in the southeast is on the city's own Rancho Cucamonga Municipal Utility, which started in 2001 and serves neighborhoods including The Enclave and Day Creek Square. Southern California Edison serves the city outside that area. Water and sewer come from the Cucamonga Valley Water District.

Does Rancho Cucamonga have Mello-Roos?

Yes, in parts of the city. Rancho Cucamonga forms its own Community Facilities Districts, and they appear as separate line items on the county tax bill. The current tax bill for the exact parcel shows whether a home carries one.

Is a Rancho Cucamonga home in a fire hazard zone?

Some are. The city's fire hazard page maps its High fire-hazard areas, and the State Fire Marshal's map shows the zone for an exact parcel. A homeowners insurance quote on that parcel early in your search shows what the zone means for your payment.