Skip to content
Foothill & Vine

History

Sandy place, deep roots

Eight centuries in one valley: a Tongva village, the state’s first commercial winery, the Mother Road, a Zappa studio, and a radio punchline — compressed into a city that only officially existed in 1977.

John Margolies photograph of the Cucamonga service station during its years as a Richfield gas station
The station in its Richfield years, photographed by roadside-America documentarian John Margolies.John Margolies · Wikimedia Commons · Public domain
c. 1200
Kukamonga
A Kukamongan village stands at Red Hill — the Tongva name means 'sandy place,' and it will outlive everything built since. The sandy soil it describes later saves the valley's vines from phylloxera.
1839
The Tapia grant
Governor Alvarado grants 13,000 acres to Tiburcio Tapia, who plants vines on what's now the Thomas Winery Plaza site — the start of California's first commercial winery and eight decades of wine dominance.
1860
The Rains House
John Rains and María Merced Williams build the fired-brick rancho on Hemlock Street that still stands — the city's oldest intact home, now a county museum (temporarily closed; call ahead).
1880s
Colony towns
George Chaffey lays out Etiwanda with some of the first electric streetlights in the West; Alta Loma grows citrus up the slope. Chinese laborers build much of the water and farm infrastructure — the 1919 Chinatown House is among the last physical traces of their community.
1926
Route 66
The new federal highway adopts Foothill Boulevard. For four decades everything America drives west in passes the vineyards, the Sycamore Inn, and — from 1940 — the Magic Lamp's neon.
1964
Studio Z
Frank Zappa buys Pal Recording Studio at 8040 N. Archibald Ave and renames it Studio Z, recording there until the building is demolished in 1965 to widen the street. The city's strangest what-if.
1950s on air
The punchline
The Jack Benny Program's running train call — 'Anaheim, Azusa and Cuc-a-monga!' — teaches most of America the name. The gag outlives the trains.
1977
Incorporation
Alta Loma, Cucamonga, and Etiwanda vote to merge as Rancho Cucamonga. The city's official motto becomes 'A World Class Community' — and no, 'Gateway to Route 66' is not one of its nicknames, whatever the internet says.
2026
The centennial
Route 66 turns one hundred with a year-long city program, and the last 400 acres of the great vineyard keep producing. Both stories get their own guides here.

Visit the evidence

Every surviving landmark, verified and mapped. For the full wine story, see the Cucamonga Valley guide; for the road, the Route 66 hub.

The historic Thomas Winery building, California Historical Landmark No. 490, at Thomas Winery Plaza
Greenhmatthew · Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA · resized

History

Thomas Winery Plaza

Not a winery anymore — a retail plaza on the site of California's first commercial winery, planted in 1839.

Old Town / Route 66 · $ · 8916 Foothill Blvd