Mentone is a census-designated place in San Bernardino County. In 1886, W.H. Drew and N.K. Fairbanks purchased 3,000 acres of land north of Crafton and south of the Santa Ana River. They named their organization the Mentone Corporation after the Mediterranean Sea Village, Menton. Mentone’s climate and vegetation resembled the Mediterranean, minus the sea.
By 1897, the town plat was surveyed and recorded under the supervision of W.P. McIntosh, a Los Angeles real estate agent and one of the land’s investors. McIntosh also planted the first orange grove in the area.
In 1892, a tourist hotel named Hotel Mentone was built at a cost of $30,000. It was modeled after the Hotel Del Coronado but was later converted into a sanitarium for tuberculosis and asthmatic patients due to financial struggles and lack of tourists visiting Mentone. The facility changed hands several times before it was eventually demolished in 1917. Some of the wood was recycled for houses in the area.
Mentone’s streets still carry names given by the land speculators more than 100 years ago. For example, east-west streets are named after Mediterranean Sea towns such as Anzio, Salerno, and Naples, and north-south streets are named after semi-precious stones such as Sapphire and Amethyst.
Today, Mentone is an unincorporated community with a population of over 9,500, according to census data. It receives police and fire services from San Bernardino County, and its schools are part of the Redlands Unified School District.
The information in this historical feature was originally part of a video series produced by the Assessor-Recorder-County Clerk’s office.
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