What is now known as the Inland Empire was inhabited for thousands of years, prior to the late 18th century, by the
Tongva,
Taaqtam,
Ivilyuqaletem and
Payómkawichum Native Americans. The first American settlers, a group of
Mormon pioneers, arrived over the
Cajon Pass in 1851. With them, they brought roughly 26 slaves with them, one of whom was
Biddy Mason, despite California having been labeled a "
free state". The mormons also bought and indenture the local natives. This was allowed under the
Act for the Government and Protection of Indians in 1850. Although the Mormons left a scant six years later, recalled to
Salt Lake City by
Brigham Young during the church's
Utah War with the U.S. government, other settlers soon followed. The entire landmass of
Southern California was
subdivided according to the
San Bernardino Meridian, which was first plotted as part of the
Public Land Survey System in November 1852, by Col. Henry Washington. Base Line Road, a major thoroughfare, today runs from
Highland to
San Dimas, intermittently along the absolute
baseline coordinates plotted by Col. Washington.
San Bernardino County was first formed out of parts of
Los Angeles County on April 26, 1853. While the partition once included what is today most of
Riverside County, the region is not as monolithic as it may sound. Rivalries between
Colton,
Redlands,
Riverside and
San Bernardino over the location of the
county seat in the 1890s caused each of them to form their own
civic communities, each with their own newspapers. On August 14, 1893, the
state Senate allowed Riverside County to form out of land previously in San Bernardino and San Diego counties, after rejecting a bill for
Pomona to split from L.A. County and become the seat of what would have been called San Antonio County. The arrival of rail and the importation of
navel and
Valencia orange trees in the 1870s touched off explosive growth, with the area quickly becoming a major center for
citrus production. This agricultural boom continued with the arrival of water from the
Colorado River and the rapid growth of Los Angeles in the early 20th century, with
dairy farming becoming another staple
industry. In the mid 19th century, the success of the citrus and railroad industry attracted Asian immigrants to the region, where they often accepted lower wages. In 1867, the first known
Chinatown in the region was in San Bernardino. However,
anti-asian sentiment that continued with the
Chinese Exclusion Act resulted in their resettlement outside of city limits along Third Street between Arrowhead Avenue and Sierra Way. At its peak, the community had a population of 400-600. They owned restaurants, groceries, and a Buddhist temple that displayed a statue of
Guanyin which attracted other Asian visitors across Southern California. The region's largest Chinatown was on Ninth Street in Riverside, which populated about 400, but as high as 3,000 during peak harvest season. It was locally known as "Little Gom-Benn" since most residents originated from the Gom-Benn village in
Taishan, Guangdong. The
Panic of 1893 led to hundreds of white laborers in Redlands to riot against Asian communities. Asian laborers, who often worked for less, often kept their jobs during the panic, which angered unemployed white workers. Mobs and armed white gangs burned and looted businesses while threatening the lives of Asian locals if they did not leave town. The
National Guard was deployed in the region to quell the unrest. The first American
Koreatown known as
Pachappa Camp was founded nearly a decade later in Riverside by
Ahn Chang Ho in 1904. Continued
nativist sentiment as well as reoccurring fires led to the decline of these communities over the next half century resulting in the land being redeveloped. This is with the exception of Riverside's former Chinatown, which is recognized as an archeological site. Artifacts from these communities are found in local museums. Likewise, the region's wealth attracted entrepreneurs, allowing for further development. A major example is the
Chaffey Brothers who were Canadian entrepreneurs who established the hydroelectric-powered irrigation colonies of Etiwanda, Ontario (named after their home province of
Ontario), and Upland, as Matthew Gage in Riverside developed the Gage Canal in the 1880s. The brothers also founded
Chaffey College in Ontario in 1883 and was originally dedicated to agriculture as part of their "Model Colony" to create a highly efficient and well organized town. The area, formerly known as New Model Colony, is now known as Ontario Ranch. The year 1893 saw the development of the historic Milk Creek No. 1 Hydroelectric Plant near Redlands. It powered irrigation pumps and was the first commercial three phase commercial
AC power plant in the US. These developments led to the region being one of the wealthiest in the United States in the late 19th century, notably Riverside in 1895. President
Benjamin Harrison was the first president to visit the region in 1891 as part of his 21 state tour by train. He spoke at the Glenwood Hotel in Riverside (now known as
The Mission Inn) starting a tradition of presidential visits to the region. The region's growing development increasingly displaced the native population. The Spanish
mission system in California, notably the
Mission San Gabriel Arcángel, forced natives to assimilate and convert to
catholicism in the 18th century. The late 18th century and early 19th century saw the development of rancho outposts, such as Redlands' Asistencia, that went more inland to increase mission outreach. The
California gold rush saw the influx of migration to the region, which increased tensions between the new settlers and the indigenous communities, resulting in skirmishes that resulted in the death of Yuhaaviatam leader Kiika. From their original land that eventually became the
National Orange Show, the natives were finally completely removed from their settlements in 1891. Throughout the century, natives were allowed to be forced into labor as part of the 1850
Act for the Government and Protection of Indians until it was repealed in 1866 following the ratification of the
13th Amendment. in 1891, California passed the Act of Relief for Mission Indians which grouped the inland tribes and recognized them as "San Manuel Band of Mission Indians" and granted them the
San Manuel Reservation. Despite this small victory, assimilation of the indigenous population was still an important goal of the government. The Perris Indian School was the most prevalent
boarding school in the area before it was moved to Riverside and was named the
Sherman Institute (now a high school) in 1903.
Frank Miller, owner of the Mission Inn, campaigned to have the school relocated near the hotel. He believed it would increase tourism while also providing the hotel with cheap labor and even entertainment. In 1926,
Route 66 (now known as
Foothill Boulevard and
Interstate 215) came through the northern parts of the area, bringing a stream of tourists and
migrants to the region. Still, the region endured as the key part of the Southern California "citrus belt" until the end of
World War II, when a new generation of
real-estate developers bulldozed acres of agricultural land to build suburbs. The precursor to the
San Bernardino Freeway, the Ramona Expressway, was built in 1944, and further development of the
freeway system in the area facilitated the expansion of suburbs and human migration throughout the Inland Empire and Southern California. The region experienced significant economic and population growth through most of the latter half of the 20th century. In the early 1990s, the loss of the region's military bases and reduction of nearby defense industries due to the end of the
Cold War led to a local economic downturn.{{Cite news|issn=0362-4331|last=Mydans|first=Seth ==Geography==