During the 1870s and 1880s there were extensive efforts to develop agriculture in the dry lands of the western United States. Many people believed that farms could be developed if they were well irrigated. In California’s San Gabriel/Pomona Valleys one of the best known and most successful colonies owed its beginning to George Chaffey and his younger brother William.
Canadian immigrants, they had arrived in nearby Riverside in 1880. Two years later, George Chaffey bought 6,218 acres of land and began to lay out a model colony, which he named Ontario after his native province in Canada. Chaffey drove a 2850-foot tunnel into a subterranean flow of water in San Antonio Canyon. The water was conducted through 40 miles of cement pipe which joined surface flow. This made farming possible in the region and put the Chaffey brothers vision of a model colony into operation.
In 1886 the Chaffey brothers departed for Australia where they hoped to construct planned communities like Ontario. In 1885, the Ontario Land and Improvement Company was formed by investors (including G.T. Stamm who later moved to Ontario) to buy the Chaffey brothers’ Ontario interests. Most of the investors lived in Los Angeles, but the president and general manager, Charles Frankish, traded his 10-acre citrus ranch in nearby Riverside for 80 acres of undeveloped land on Euclid Avenue, south of the Southern Pacific railroad tracks in 1885. He relocated to Ontario because he firmly believed in the Chaffey brothers vision of a Model Colony and also because he foresaw Ontario’s potential for growth and development.
Frankish was actively involved in the planning and development of Ontario. He was responsible for the design of almost all the city south of the Southern Pacific tracks. He personally supervised the extension of Euclid Avenue to Ely Street (now Philadelphia), the city’s southern limit, and the installation of stone gutters along the avenue to handle flood waters, doing much of the actual gutter construction himself. Under his management, the Ontario Land and Improvement Company sold $1,015,000 of real estate during its first two years of existence.
As general manager of the company, Frankish developed San Antonio Heights (now north Upland) and expanded Ontario south beyond the railroad tracks. The city’s boundary became California Boulevard on the south; Sultana Avenue on the east and Vine Avenue to the west. This area was known as the South Side Tract.
In 1887 Frankish guided the organization of the Ontario and San Antonio Heights Railroad to link Ontario to San Antonio Heights. The trolley system, which originally was to run on hydroelectric power, instead used mules to pull a passenger car up Euclid Avenue. The return ride was solely by gravity, with the mule riding on a pull-out platform when southbound.
Frankish was responsible for installation of the rock curbs along Euclid Avenue. He organized grading, irrigation and purchased orange trees for out-of-town growers. He commissioned a grandiose water fountain equipped with a compound sprayer with jets and had it placed on the Euclid Avenue median. The water fountain, symbolizing an abundance of water, was turned on when passenger trains stopped at the depot.
Frankish also helped establish Ontario’s first bank, the Ontario State Bank, in 1887 and served variously as its secretary, vice president, president, and director. In 1895 the town installed its system of electric lights under Frankish, who managed the system until 1901.He served as vice president of the Ontario People’s Mutual Building and Loan Association and as Director of the Ontario Chamber of Commerce where he was known as a “one man Chamber of Commerce”.
Like other important men in the town, Frankish built a family home on Emporia Avenue in an area that became known as Developers Row.
Frankish formed and headed his own corporation, the Frankish Company, which bought out the Ontario Land and Improvement Company. In a 1907 advertising campaign, the Frankish Company used the slogan “The City That Charms” to describe Ontario. Later this phrase was adopted by the city of Ontario as its official slogan.
Frankish took over at a time when the original Model Colony was maturing and needed guidance to compete successfully with other communities in the surrounding region. The Model Colony’s orderly growth came from the clear-sighted planning of the Chaffey brothers and Charles Frankish.
The Frankish Building
Like many businessmen of his time period, Frankish celebrated his influence in the community by erecting a special building bearing his name. In 1915-16 Frankish and his son Hugh designed and supervised construction of one of the city’s landmark commercial and residential buildings on Euclid Avenue. The building represents a third era in the history of Ontario – an era of stability and constant growth.
The Frankish Building, a symbol of wealth and position, was highly praised when it was built. It incorporated characteristics of a popular architectural style known as Second Renaissance Revival Style that was popular in the United States from 1890 to 1915. Features of this style include
- a facade that is more or less flat with no pronounced projections or recessions;
- rusticated quoins, or rough-hewn stones that form the angles of the corners of the building;
- lintels, or horizontal beams that support the area above the windows, which project and are made of smooth stone;
- plain wooden cornices, or horizontal molded projections at the top of the building on the street sides; and
- decorative brackets at each corner of the cornice.
This style was extensively for public buildings, which may explain why the post office was housed within the ground floor of the Frankish Building prior to construction of the Paul Williams post office building on the southeast corner of Transit Street and Laurel Ave. decorative brackets at each corner of the cornice.
The Frankish Building is a 3-story commercial and residential building on the southwest corner of Euclid Avenue and Transit Street. It’s architectural characteristics include a straightforward façade without any considerable projections or recessions. The roof is invisible from the street level. It has symmetrical elevations, rusticated quoins and ground floor walls and columns, and a smooth and plain upper-story wall surface that serves as a neutral background for the windows.
The building was constructed of reinforced concrete, precast concrete blocks called art stone, cement plaster, and glazed white brick. The art stone was made from a formula devised by the Frankishes and poured at the construction site. Large plate glass windows separated by columns embellished the first floor, which also had a court recess in the rear of the building. This floor was used for commerce, housing various offices through the years.
The Charlemagne Apartments located on the second and third stories excited the curiosity of the whole town. Apartments as living places were a fairly new and very urban phenomenon in 1915. The Frankish Building housed 32 units, 16 on each floor, consisting of two to four rooms each. The entrance lobby to the apartments was located at the midpoint on the Transit Street side of the building.
Topping the street sides of the building is a plain wooden cornice with decorative brackets at each corner and parapet wall above. The street intersection corner of the building is cut off at a 45-degree diagonal wide enough for the main (ground) floor entrance. The first floor ceiling consists of grids of ornately designed pressed tin pans. While the decorative design of the building is fairly plain, it is entirely suitable for a structure that serves both as a business building and as a residence.
Following are excerpts from a 1915 article on Charles Frankish in the Ontario Daily Report:
One of the latest undertakings of the Frankish Company for the promotion of the city’s best interests is the erection of the handsome stone, brick and reinforced concrete business block at the southwest corner of Euclid Avenue and Commercial Court [Transit Street] known as the Frankish Building.
The ground floor of this building, below which is a commodious basement, will be devoted probably entirely to mercantile or financial establishments, while the second and third floors are being fitted for very high-class and modern living apartments and offices. An elevator connects all floors. The central location of this building, together with the beautiful views it commands of the mountains and of City Hall Park, make it particularly desirable for a highgrade apartment house.
The living apartments on the second and third floors are from two to four rooms in size and thirty-two in number. They are to be strictly modern in every sense of the word.
It is the most handsome and substantial business block in the city. Practically the entire work of construction of this handsome building has been under the direct supervision of Mr. Frankish or of his son, Hugh H. Frankish. Nothing but the best of materials have been used and all workmanship has been of the highest quality so that this three-story edifice is quite substantial as it is handsome.
Sources: US Department of the Interior National Registry of Historic Places Nomination Form; article on Charles Frankish written by Diane Ayala, Senior Planning, City of Ontario Planning Department.