Ontario’s Mule Car
Photo Courtesy Ovitt Family Library Ontario’s famed mule car hauled passengers up and down Euclid Avenue for eight years through 1895. Mules would haul the car to the top of the street and then ride back down to downtown as the car was powered by gravity.
We are surrounded by evidence of history.
I grew up in a 1960s housing tract in Ontario, California and always loved driving up Euclid Avenue, particularly north through the downtown towards Upland. The early commercial district and houses, old peppertrees and grevilia, and the elephant-toe stone curbs, all against a dramatic mountain backdrop give the place a real old timey main street U.S.A feel-very different from our subdivision.
One of my favorite features of Euclid Avenue has always been the Mule Car exhibit and interpretive center in the median just south of B Street. The Euclid Avenue Mule Car and railroad tracks comprised a trolley car system that ran down the center of the street’s median (Department of Parks and Recreation 1974; City of Ontario ca. 2020). It was first developed in 1887. Two trolly cars were used, each pulled north by a single mule up the hill towards 24th Street in Upland. The uphill climb took about an hour. At the north end of the line, the mule would be loaded onto a trailer at the back of the car, and it would descend the hill to the south end of the track using gravity and a brake system. The downhill descent for the passengers (and the mules) only took 20 minutes.
Tracks visible up the median of Euclid Ave in this Ontario Lithograph 1880s of Euclid Avenue looking North from Holt Avenue (Caltrans District 8 and City of Ontario 2023)
Electric trollies replaced the mule-powered ones in 1896 and the mules were sold to a farmer.
Although the median and much of its original landscaping remain in place, the line was completely removed sometime in the early to mid-twentieth century. People have told me about sections of track that are still there, but I’ve never seen them.
The Mules refused to pull downhill, waiting for their free ride.
A local anecdote states that when the mules retired from trolly work, they were sold to a farmer. Supposedly, the farmer used them to plow a field with furrows that were oriented north by south, in a neighborhood with a similar aspect to Euclid Avenue. When the mules got to the north (uphill) end of the field, they wouldn’t turn to plough to the south. They were waiting to be loaded on to a trailer for the free ride. The mules were quickly put out to pasture. We couldn’t verify every word of the mule-retirement story, but it’s true that it is a story.
Ontario Mule Cart Monument on Euclid Avenue
A small display featuring a reconstruction of one of the mule car trollies was placed in the Euclid Avenue median just south of its intersection with East B Street (immediately west of the project alignment). This resource was listed as a California Point of Historical Interest in 1974 (Reg. No. SBr-033), but was subsequently found ineligible for the National Register of Historic Places. During a partial inventory of the District, we re-recorded the Mule Car exhibit and updated its documentation for the state archive, as required. No changes to the display are proposed.
BCR Consulting was recently involved in a cultural resources assessment at the City of Ontario Recycled Water Distribution Project in the City of Ontario. The City is committed to preservation of its resources, and BCR Consulting has assisted by recommending measures to minimize development-related impacts to its historical resources, particularly along the Euclid Avenue Historic District.