Claremont highlight
Historic downtown
Claremont's downtown was laid out by the Santa Fe Railroad in January 1887 and incorporated as a city on October 3, 1907.
The Santa Fe Railroad laid out the town site of Claremont in January 1887. The city itself was incorporated on October 3, 1907, following a September election in which nearly 95 percent of eligible voters participated in the decision. By 1920, Claremont had become a major center of California citrus production, with four packing houses operating in the area and a substantial community of Mexican-American workers processing and shipping fruit across the region.
The downtown core of Claremont remains, as the city describes it, a vital residential and retail district—one of the last true downtowns in the region. The architecture reflects the city's heritage through Victorian, Neoclassical Revival, Craftsman, and Spanish Colonial Revival structures. Much of the downtown character traces to the influence of Pomona College, whose founders brought a New England sensibility when they relocated the institution to Claremont in 1888, shaping the city's early identity as an educational community.
A downtown that has lasted more than a century is a reminder that communities and the people in them are built to endure. Life insurance works the same way: it is built to last through the specific years when an income loss would hurt most, whether because of a mortgage, children at home, or a business that depends on one person's presence.