A Double Dose of Tres Hermanos in the Champion

This week's edition of the Chino/Chino Hills Champion has not one, but two, front-page articles concerning Tres Hermanos Ranch, which is situated in Tonner Canyon directly north of Carbon Canyon.

One article concerns last Monday's Chino Hills Historical Society presentation to about 125 people on this history of the 2,450-acre ranch, owned by the City of Industry since 1978, but for about sixty years before that the property of the "three brothers," William R. Rowland, William B. Scott, and Harry Chandler.  Rowland died in 1926 and his share was evidently sold to the heirs of Scott, who passed away six years before that, and Chandler.

The talk actually went back to pre-history to mention that native indigenous Indians of the area and their likely use of the ranch site for hunting and gathering and noted that, during the Spanish and Mexican periods (up to the late 1840s), the property was part of public lands set aside for neighboring ranches to have additional grazing land for cattle and other animals.

Reference to Tres Hermanos Ranch and some legal trouble with cattle brands, San Bernardino County Sun, 1 June 1935.

By 1870, these public lands were made available for purchase by private citizens and among these were George Butler and Wilson Beach, who acquired the Tres Hermanos area by mid-decade and then sold an interest to teamster Charles Wright.  A few years later, Santa Cruz lumber baron Sedgwick Lynch acquired Butler and Beach's portion of the property and left that to his wife, Jane.  She and Wright held onto the Tres Hermanos area as part of an expanded Rancho Los Nogales, a 1,000-acre land grant from the 1840s that swelled to about 9,000 acres by the end of the century.

In 1908, Pittsburgh dentist and real estate investor Walter Fundenberg bought Los Nogales from Lynch and Wright and hoped to find oil, though the lucky strike never materialized.  Within a decade, he split Los Nogales through two sales:  one to Frederick Lewis, an East Coast millionaire who created the Diamond Bar Ranch, from which the city of that name was later developed, and the other to Rowland, Scott and Chandler as Tres Hermanos.

Examples of parties and other events at the ranch and some other tidbits were given in the talk and brief summaries of some of the later history, as well.  These latter included mention of the installation of a Metropolitan Water District feeder line through the ranch in the mid-1960s, plans early the next decade by the Pomona Valley Water Company to buy the ranch and create a massive reservoir for water storage and delivery; and the sale to the City of Industry, which contemplated residential development when early planning for Chino Hills was launched and later looked at a reservoir and a solar farm.

Speaking of the solar farm, the headline article on the front page of the Champion concerned yet another lawsuit filed about Tres Hermanos and the scuttled solar farm plans.  William Barkett, who'd signed a long-term deal with the City of Industry a few years back to develop the farm and then was informed that the deal was off by a new administration in that city, has brought suit against Industry, Chino Hills and Diamond Bar (these latter two cities recently acquiring interests in Tres Hermanos in a landmark deal with the City of Industry), as well as the Tres Hermanos Conservation Authority established by the trio of municipalities.  Each of the four has its own legal representation.

A view of Tres Hermanos Ranch from near Diamond Ranch High School, March 2018.

Claiming potential lost revenue of $246 million, Barkett's San Gabriel Valley Water and Power alleges that the three cities illegally denied the firm's opportunity to develop the solar farm with the City of Commerce.  As noted here before, the proposed arrangement with Commerce, which came out of the blue led to some confusion on the part of Commerce's public comments about its commitment to the abruptly announced plans to pursue the project.

The company claims that the cities violated the Brown Act concerning public meetings to discuss the business of the municipalities, to which Chino Hills council member Ray Marquez responded that everything was done to the letter of the law and that the suit's allegations were "nonsense."

The three cities have until 22 May to file responses to the amended complaint of SGVWP, which was made on the 1st.  In turn, the firm will have until 21 June to reply to those responses.  Chino Hills Assistant City Attorney Elizabeth Calciano implied that there are no legal grounds for the suit, so that it should be tossed by the San Bernardino Superior Court.  She added, though, that there will be a 17 July hearing before a judge, who will decide what to do.

So, stay tuned for further news on this latest legal twist and other news relating to Tres Hermanos Ranch!