Along an industrial stretch of Pomona, lined with warehouses and low-slung manufacturing buildings, a grand 1875 mansion sits set back from the street behind a wide, green lawn. The historical landmark has undergone multiple renovations, resisted demolition and survived major earthquakes over its more than 150 years, prevailing stubbornly as one of the last remaining symbols of a forgotten town.
Just down the road, a locked iron gate guards a road to a small cemetery that has withstood a similarly long battle for subsistence, though the dead’s descendants have long moved away. Years of vandalism, grave robbing and even alleged cult ceremonies have taken their toll, though the graves remain. Today, the two landmarks are the only remnants of Spadra, a Wild West settlement that’s all but disappeared into California’s history.
In the 1850s, an enterprising immigrant named Louis Phillips saw potential in the outskirts of Los Angeles County. He’d made his way down from San Francisco to try ranching, acquiring land in the San Gabriel Valley to raise cattle and farm, eventually finding it a lucrative business. He then acquired 12,000 acres of land in what would become modern-day Pomona, and, hoping to capitalize on this new investment, sold parcels of land to newcomers in an effort to spur development.
William “Uncle Billy” Rubottom, an Old West businessman, bought 100 acres and gave the new town its name in 1866, an ode to his hometown of Spadra, Arkansas. He owned a tavern and stagecoach station that “was one of the most important stopping points on the Butterfield stagecoach line,” according to the Progress-Bulletin, a newspaper that once covered the Pomona area…