| To reverse the cliché, George Chaffey
Jr. was no talk and all action. He established Ontario and Upland. Irrigated the
Imperial Valley. Helped to create a banking empire. Erected Los Angeles' first
street lights. Rubbed elbows with Thomas Edison and Alexander Graham Bell.
Eagerly stayed on the cutting edge of technology.
In his 70's, he built a recreational
vehicle and roamed around the west. This was 1920. There were no RV parks, no
Good Sam stickers, no microwave burritos.
| "This man was such a
genius," said Bob Ellingwood, a former Ontario Mayor and an expert in
Chaffey's life.
Despite Chaffey's accomplishments,
Ellingwood added, "He was not a talker. He was a doer. He always said, 'my
works will speak for me.'"
In case those works aren't speaking
loudly enough, others have stepped forward in recent days to praise Chaffey,
whose 150th birthday was Wednesday. (No, he wasn't around to eat any
cake: He died in 1932.) |
 This
is an early camp car, dubbed "Sally
Brown," from the 1920s designed by George
Chaffey Jr. |
About 30 Chaffey family members, some from
as far way as Canada, showed up to a luncheon Jan. 23 to honor Chaffey. A
presentation titled "Happy Birthday, George Chaffey!" at Chaffey High
School followed on Monday with music, speakers and a slide show on Ontario's
history.
A museum exhibit, "150 Years of
Brilliance," has opened at the Ontario Museum of History and Art to display
photos and keepsakes of Chaffey's.
A time line in the exhibit room makes a
telling point. Around the time Chaffey was building stately Euclid Avenue, a
street named for a Greek mathematician, Jesse James was robbing banks and the OK
Corral was the site of gunplay.
"The Wild West was going on and he
was founding Ontario," museum registrar Maricarmen Ruiz-Torres said
admiringly. "We did this time line to show what a visionary he was."
Born into a shipping family in Canada
in 1848, Chaffey studied math and engineering while commanding his father's
tugboats on Lake Ontario. At age16 -when fellow teens were wishing malls had
been invented so they could hang out there- Chaffey was patenting a new type of
boat propeller.
Chaffey established himself as a
designer of passenger and freight ships. Life was about to take a sharp left
turn, however.
In 1880, Chaffey's brother, William,
and their now-retired father moved to Riverside after an enthusiastic report
from a family friend about the mild climate and raw, new land.
George, then 32, visited them later
that year and, like many visitors to Southern California in years to come, was
so dazzled he never returned home.
| Still, this was Southern California
long before swimming pools and movie stars. It was dry, dry, dry.
Chaffey bought a lonely house in the
San Gabriel foothills surrounded by a 560-acre sheep farm, then sent for his
wife, Annete, and their two children in Canada. He called his farm Etiwanda,
after an Algonquin Indian friend back home.
At his own expense, he built a
telephone line from his to San Bernardino to more quickly conduct business with
the county seat. It's considered the first long-distance phone line in
California. |
 Bob Ellingwood , A George Chaffey Jr. historian
and former mayor of Ontario, walks along the
back porch of the Chaffey Garcia House.
 |
"He wanted a telephone, there was
nobody to supply it, so he built it him self. He did that all his life,"
Ellingwood said.
Chaffey also erected the first electric
light in Southern California- outside, on towers 70 feet high, each burning at
3,000 candlepower. People could see Chaffey's lights all the way from Riverside
(This was before smog, obviously. Today in Riverside you can't see across the
street.)
Jealous civic leaders in Los Angeles
quickly hired Chaffey to build street lights in their fledgling town. Los
Angeles thus became the first town in the world whose streets were lighted
entirely by electricity.
| Chaffey didn't build the lights in his
property only for fun. He also wanted to draw attention to the area as a land
developer.
George and William that year had bought
6,216 acres of the Cucamonga Ranch, then set out to give people a reason to buy
parcels of the land for homes, farms and businesses. |
A copper Wyvern kettle warmer,
from the 1800's, is one of many items on display at
the Etiwanda house where
Chaffey once lived.
|
They decided to build a town around a
Southern Pacific Railroad stop and call it Ontario, for the Canadian province
where they grew up. Because all the towns need water, they build a water line
from San Antonio Canyon. And they created a mutual water company to sell water
rights that came with each land purchase - a novel concept that was duplicated
throughout California.
Atop the water line, which ran from the
San Gabriel Mountains to the railroad depot, the Chaffeys built a street. But
not just any street.
Euclid Avenue, a 200-foot-wide street
with a park-like median strip, was envisioned and engineered by George and
landscaped with pepper trees by William in 1883. With a few changes, the street
is intact, and celebrated, more than a century later.
"There was not one house in
Ontario or Upland," Ellingwood marveled. "This guy was so far-thinking
it was amazing. He sat up on the mesa and envisioned what the community should
look like."
The Chaffeys didn't want a Wild West
town. So they barred the sale of alcohol and gave free land for churches,
figuring that would attract families. They also launched Chaffey College, an
agricultural school affiliated with the University of Southern California.
In 1886, life took another drastic turn
for the Chaffey brothers.
A group of Australian officials seeking
ways to irrigate their own desert country visited the Chaffeys' "model
colony" of Ontario and offered the brothers the proverbial deal they
couldn't refuse.
George and William sold their holdings
here, packed up and sailed for Oz, full of high hopes and dreams of big bucks.
Twelve years later, George had lost his
shirt -- and almost everything else -- in Australia, a setback blamed on an
economic depression and government red tape. William decided to stick it out,
but George returned to the United States, dejected.
As it turned out, William Chaffey
eventually managed to build a dried fruit empire (hey, whatever works) in
Australia. Back in Southern California, George Chaffey, who had built and lost a
fortune, built another one.
In this go-round, the peripatetic Chaffey:
- developed a hydroelectric plant in San
Antonio Canyon, still used today by Southern California Edison;
- brought water by 150 miles of canals
from the Colorado River to the Imperial Valley;
- successfully sued mighty USC to win
back local control of Chaffey College;
- and founded a network of banks with
his son, Andrew, that became the California Bank and, later, First Interstate
Bank.
In 1932, at age 84, Chaffey died in San
Diego, a few weeks before a planned appearance at Ontario's 50-year celebration.
He's buried in Ontario's Bellevue Cemetery.
Ellingwood, who considers Chaffey a
local hero, said he couldn't at first believe that this one man had done all the
things attributed to him.
"Every time I'd check on something
I'd heard he did, not only had he done it," Ellingwood said with a smile,
"he'd done six other things people didn't know about."
What a life!
George Chaffey Jr. packed a lot of
achievements into his 84 years. Here's a few:
Founded or helped establish 12 cities,
including Ontario, Upland, Whittier, Brea and Mexicali
Built Euclid Avenue, the centerpiece of
what is now Ontario and Upland
Erected the first electric light in
Southern California
Installed the first Hydroelectric power
system west of the Rocky Mountains on his Etiwanda property
Raised the first long-distance phone line
in Southern California
Established Chaffey College and Chaffey
High School
Co-founded what became First Interstate
Bank
Engineered a 150-mile canal from the Colorado
River that irrigated the Imperial Valley
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