Easily install in 30 minutes or less with guided instructions in the app, then personalize your watering schedule to balance your landscape's needs. In November 1976, or nine months after Junkunc says the matter was settled, the Tri-Communities Committee told the newspaper: “‘Rancho Cucamonga’ is the first name among several that undoubtedly will be proposed as election time approaches.Rachio 3 Smart Irrigation Controller replaces your existing irrigation timer for improved watering performance. You’d think there would have been a story about the name Rancho Cucamonga having been officially selected. RANCHERO SMART TIMER INSTALL FREE“We couldn’t even begin to pay a good public relations man who could get as much free publicity as we already get because of that name,” supporter Al Blessent told the Report in 1976.Īfter Junkunc contacted me, I paged through the book’s chronological clippings twice. She told me at a council meeting that year that Benny’s jokes about the city had caused a split between those upset that he’d made the name “an international joke” and those who thought he’d given them a leg up. That’s where I found the Daily Report stories cited above. McIndoo always felt Cucamonga was putting on airs by adding Rancho: “I thought the folks there were trying to improve upon just Cucamonga, which is a kind of a kooky word and name – as is Temecula out in this area (there were even stickers on cars saying ‘Where the Hell is Temecula’).”īenny, by the way, may have popularized the pronunciation that most of us use, with Cucamonga beginning like “coo.” I’ve met old-timers who still say the name with a “cyew” sound, like “cucumber.”Īn incorporation leader, Catherine Bridge - whose husband, Art, was an early council member - compiled her files of news clippings and documents into a privately published book in 2007. We used to run around chanting that name ‘coo-coo-MON-ga.’” RANCHERO SMART TIMER INSTALL TVWhy do you suppose Jack Benny used it on his radio and TV shows?”Ī friend who grew up in Covina in the ’70s tells me: “As kids we thought Cucamonga was a made-up name for a made-up place. Opponents told the Daily Report in November 1976: “Cucamonga has a funny sound. The original Spanish land-grant name for the area in the 1840s was Rancho Cucamonga, making the name historically accurate, Frost told me. The accepted interpretations have been “Sandy Place,” “Place of Many Springs” or “The Place of the Light Over the Mountain.” Clucas may or may not side with the latter, but he seems to have realized that “Light Over the Mountain” was a more commercial title for his book than “Sandy Place.” “The meaning of the name has been a source for disagreement for quite a long time,” Clucas wrote. “As a former resident of Upland beginning in 1933 until 1959, in reading your article about Rancho Cucamonga I am curious to know if you know where the name Cucamonga came from? It became well known back in radio days of course from ‘The Jack Benny Show,’ which spoke of Anaheim, Azusa and Cucamonga – and always made us laugh…If it is a Native American word (or maybe Spanish), it surely must have a meaning.”Īccording to Don Clucas’ history tome “Light Over the Mountain,” Cucamonga was the name given to the area by the Gabrielino tribe, under several spellings including “Kukomo-nga.” I’ll segue here to a question from reader Sylvia McIndoo of Murrieta. Other contenders included Iomosa, Red Hill City, Tricity, Tres Pueblos, Chaffey Hills, Cucamonga Rancho and Bennysville, an homage to radio comic Jack Benny. Less of a mouthful was Ace, which used the first letter of each name. In an attempt to not leave anyone out, or maybe just for fun, the name Altacucawanda was proposed. Reader Charles Bentley recalls that for many years after cityhood, “Alta Loma Alone” bumper stickers were still on cars around town.įive months after the Naming Committee’s recommendation, names were still being batted around, according to a July 1976 Daily Report story.
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