Concept

Fontana, California

Summary
Fontana is a city in San Bernardino County, California, United States. Founded by Azariel Blanchard Miller in 1913, it remained essentially rural until World War II, when entrepreneur Henry J. Kaiser built a large steel mill in the area. It is now a regional hub of the trucking industry, with the east–west Interstate 10 and State Route 210 crossing the city and Interstate 15 passing diagonally through its northwestern quadrant. The city is about east of Los Angeles. It is home to a renovated historic theater, a municipal park, and the Auto Club Speedway, which is on the site of the old Kaiser Steel Mill just outside the city. Fontana also hosts the Fontana Days Half Marathon and 5K run. This race is the fastest half-marathon course in the world. The United States Census Bureau reported that Fontana's 2020 population was 212,704, making it the second-most-populous city in San Bernardino County and the 21st largest in the state. Fontana, formerly Rosena from 1898-1919, was founded in 1919 by Azariel Blanchard Miller. The name fontana is Italian for fountain or water source, being in close proximity to the Santa Ana River to the east. Within a few years it became an agricultural town of citrus orchards, vineyards and chicken ranches and 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 the Kaiser Steel plant, at the time 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 1960s, 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 gone, but the owners of NASCAR's new Auto Club Speedway opened a NHRA-sanctioned drag strip just oustside Fontana in mid-2006.
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