The land which is now Claremont has been occupied for hundreds of years. Indians camped close to what is now Foothill and Indian Hill Boulevards in the 18th century. During California's Spanish period, it was part of the vast holdings of the Mission San Gabriel and in 1834 the area became part of Rancho San Jose. The sister of powerful Rancho owner Don Ignacio Palomares built her adobe home in the center of what is now Memorial Park. But, modern Claremont was to be shaped by three other major forces - college, church and citrus.
Claremont was a town created by the Santa Fe Railroad in 1887 as it carved out a new route between Chicago and Los Angeles. The railroad lured Easterners to come to California and buy land in any one of several townsites they had established along their route. In Claremont, the railroad had built a Victorian train station and ornate hotel, set up a land sales office and waited for the boom. But the expected land boom of the late 1880s fizzled and Claremont could have become a ghost town had not one of the members of the land company also been a trustee of a fledgling Congregational college just being established in the area. Pomona College was offered land and the empty hotel by the land company. The Claremont Hotel became Claremont Hall, then later Sumner Hall, and Claremont became the home of Pomona College.
Pomona College founders were seeking to establish a school "of the New England style" and the Claremont Community (Congregational) Church which they soon established was a center of social and religious life for many years. Early town meetings demonstrated the sort of volunteer support that still marks the community today.
Citizens bought and planted street trees and shrubs and maintained them themselves. A volunteer fire department was set up which was only disbanded in the 1970s, and a civic center committee established.
By 1923, Pomona College was so well established that pressure for admissions seemed about to push it to university size. The prospect disturbed the President, James A. Blaisdell, who hoped for "a group of institutions divided into small colleges - somewhat on the Oxford type - around a library and other utilities which they would use in common." His dream was realized when Ellen Browning Scripps of the Scripps newspaper dynasty donated 250 acres of land and The Claremont Colleges were in business.
In 1925 the Claremont Graduate School enrolled its first four students. The next year, Miss Scripps, then 90, founded Scripps College for women. Three more undergraduate colleges have since been added - Claremont Men's Colleges in 1946. The name was changed to Claremont McKenna College in 1970 when it became co-ed. Harvey Mudd College in 1955, and Pitzer College in 1963. In the fall of 1999 a seventh college opened. The Keck Graduate Institute of Applied Life Sciences is a graduate school with a focus on the natural sciences and engineering. In addition to the Claremont Colleges consortium the city is also home to the School of Theology at Claremont which moved to Claremont from Los Angeles in 1956 and the Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden, a facility devoted to California native plants.
Paralleling the growth of the college community was the spread of citrus ranches, not only in Claremont but across all the foothill communities from Los Angeles to Riverside. By the early 1900s, all of non-residential Claremont was "set out" in orange and lemon groves. One of the earliest cooperatives to grade, ship and market citrus was established by Claremont growers - an enterprise followed all across the state and leading to the organization of Sunkist cooperative. At one time there were four citrus packing houses, an ice house and a precooling plant lining the Santa Fe tracks. There are still a few groves in north Claremont, and one of the old packing house buildings still exists just west of The Village, but the most enduring legacy from the citrus past are the beautiful structures built of local fieldstone to serve the needs of the grove owners - ranch houses, barns and pumphouses - which are among the best examples of stone architecture in Southern California.
A visitor walking or driving through Claremont today will find a microcosm of Southern California's architectural history from the lofty Victorians on College and First Streets to the "democratic" Craftsman bungalows throughout the town. Also represented are New England cottages, Spanish Revival structures, and even some flat-roofed houses of the International style.
The Second World War was a watershed for Claremont as for all of Southern California. Pressure for residential development caused the decline of the citrus industry, and much of Claremont above Foothill and below The Village was converted to housing. The completion of the San Bernardino Freeway (Interstate 10) in 1954 made it possible for people not connected with citrus ranching or the colleges to live in Claremont.
Although the population has grown and diversified, most reaffirm the values of early Claremonters - a strong belief in the importance of education, an open approach to governance with an active citizen commission system upholding high standards in development and a lively spirit of volunteerism which offers hundreds of opportunities to become active in the community.
