Homes, condos and land for sale and rent in Fontana, CA

Fontana was founded in 1913 by Azariel Blanchard Miller. Within a few years it became an agricultural town of citrus orchards, vineyards and chicken ranches astride U.S. Route 66 (now known as Foothill Boulevard). The Fontana area was radically transformed during World War II when Henry J. Kaiser built one of only two steel mills west of the Mississippi River outside the city limits. To provide for the plant workers’ health needs, Henry J. Kaiser constructed the Fontana Kaiser Permanente medical facility, now the largest managed care organization in the United States.
In the 1950s and ’60s, Fontana was home to a drag racing strip that was a venue in the NHRA circuit. Mickey Thompson’s Fontana International Dragway was also referred to as Fontana Drag City or Fontana Drag Strip. The original Fontana strip is long since defunct, but the owners of NASCAR’s new Auto Club Speedway opened a new NHRA-sanctioned drag strip in Fontana in mid-2006 to resurrect Fontana’s drag-racing heritage.

Most of the city of Fontana, like its eastern neighbors Rialto and San Bernardino, is built atop a geologically young, gently southward-sloping alluvial fan from nearby Lytle Creek, deposited mainly during the Holocene and late-Pleistocene epochs. There are also sedimentary deposits of similar age from Etiwanda Creek on the western edge of the city. However, the northern and southern edges of the city are formed by the much older San Gabriel and Jurupa mountain ranges, respectively. The Jurupa Mountains are composed primarily of Cretaceous and Paleozoic-era rocks, as are the San Gabriels, which also include even older, Proterozoic formations. The most prominent of the San Gabriel Mountains visible from Fontana is Cucamonga Peak, elevation 8,859 feet (2,700m). Additionally, the Cucamonga Fault Zone, contiguous with the Sierra Madre Fault Zone, runs through the northern part of the city, along the base of the San Gabriels, notably through the Hunter’s Ridge and Coyote Canyon planned communities. It is estimated to be capable of producing earthquakes approximately of magnitude 6.0-7.0.
The city’s listed elevation, measured from the northeast corner of the intersection of Upland Avenue and Sierra Avenue, downtown by City Hall, is 1,237 feet (377 m). However, the highest elevation within the city limits is approximately 2,600 feet (792.48m), in the northernmost part of the Panorama neighborhood of Hunter’s Ridge. The lowest point within the city limits is approximately 840 feet (256.03m), at the intersection of Etiwanda and Philadelphia avenues, the extreme southwestern corner of the city.[18] This difference in elevation is due to the southward slope of the Lytle Creek alluvial fan.

The city is frequently affected by the strong, hot and dry Santa Ana winds as they blow through the nearby Cajon Pass of the San Gabriel mountains, from the Mojave Desert.
Fontana can also be extremely hot in summer, well over 100 degrees Fahrenheit.

The 2010 United States Census reported that Fontana had a population of 196,069. The population density was 4,620.8 people per square mile (1,784.1/km²). The racial makeup of Fontana was 92,978 (47.4%) White (15.4% Non-Hispanic White),[25] 19,574 (10.0%) African American, 1,957 (1.0%) Native American, 12,948 (6.6%) Asian, 547 (0.3%) Pacific Islander, 58,449 (29.8%) from other races, and 9,616 (4.9%) from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 130,957 persons (66.8%).

The Census reported that 195,625 people (99.8% of the population) lived in households, 216 (0.1%) lived in non-institutionalized group quarters, and 228 (0.1%) were institutionalized.
There were 49,116 households, out of which 29,465 (60.0%) had children under the age of 18 living in them, 30,245 (61.6%) were opposite-sex married couples living together, 8,074 (16.4%) had a female householder with no husband present, 4,125 (8.4%) had a male householder with no wife present. There were 3,447 (7.0%) unmarried opposite-sex partnerships, and 317 (0.6%) same-sex married couples or partnerships. 4,801 households (9.8%) were made up of individuals and 1,633 (3.3%) had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 3.98. There were 42,444 families (86.4% of all households); the average family size was 4.18.

The population was spread out with 64,521 people (32.9%) under the age of 18, 22,995 people (11.7%) aged 18 to 24, 57,646 people (29.4%) aged 25 to 44, 39,823 people (20.3%) aged 45 to 64, and 11,084 people (5.7%) who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 28.7 years. For every 100 females there were 98.7 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 95.7 males.
There were 51,857 housing units at an average density of 1,222.1 per square mile (471.9/km²), of which 33,862 (68.9%) were owner-occupied, and 15,254 (31.1%) were occupied by renters. The homeowner vacancy rate was 2.6%; the rental vacancy rate was 6.0%. 134,857 people (68.8% of the population) lived in owner-occupied housing units and 60,768 people (31.0%) lived in rental housing units.
According to the 2010 United States Census, Fontana had a median household income of $64,195, with 15.0% of the population living below the federal poverty line.

Fontana’s current economy is driven largely by industrial uses, particularly trucking-based industries. The city is home to several truck dealerships, and other industrial equipment sales centers, and, like its neighbors Ontario and Rancho Cucamonga, many product distribution centers for such companies as Toyota, Target, Sears, Mercedes-Benz, Southern California Edison, Home Shopping Network, and Avery Dennison. The city is also home to numerous small manufacturers of building materials and other locally used products, and many small auto dealerships and salvage yards. Fontana’s economy has also heavily encouraged, at least until such activities had been somewhat hampered by the Subprime mortgage crisis, the planning, developing and construction of new housing tracts. The city also has numerous local shopping centers, such as the Summit Heights Gateway/Falcon Ridge Town Center at the north end of the city, and Palm Court in the southern section. The city also features commercial strip zoning along several of its major avenues and boulevards, such as the “Miracle Mile” Straddling the 210 Freeway between Citrus and Sierra Avenues. The official Fontana Auto Center is part of that zone, with two major dealerships already in place.