How the city of Calimesa got its name
Along the 10 Freeway at the county line between Riverside and San Bernardino counties lies the city of Calimesa. Situated between Yucaipa and Cherry Valley, this community incorporated just over 30 years ago, but is actually closing in on 100 years old, and has an interesting story about its founding.
When one hears about the area, it is generally called the Yucaipa-Calimesa area, and with good reason.
Yucaipa, north of the county line in San Bernardino County, is a community dating back to the Mission and Mexican Rancho days of Southern California's history. By the 1920s, after Yucaipa became one of the southernmost establishments in San Bernardino County, the region that would become Calimesa was simply referred to as "South Yucaipa" or the "South Bench" for the tableland it occupied.
At that time, the region was known for growing apples, as nearby Oak Glen still is today. One resident of the "South Bench" was a man named Harry Sheppard. Sheppard had a business named King's Beverage Enterprises that involved taking overstock apples, or apples that might not do well in market, and converting them into a tonic he called "King's Malum." Interestingly, malum does mean apple or apple tree in Latin, but more often than not, it is used to denote bad or evil. Regardless of Sheppard's choice of names, King's Malum was one of the many cure-all tonics available during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Reminiscing about early Calimesa in 1982, Gordon Greenslade told of Sheppard's dissatisfaction with the postal service on the South Bench. The postal carrier, a man named James Fritts, refused to deliver Sheppard's mail on his desk, instead opting for a more conventional approach. Sheppard became angry and began lobbying the postal service to secure a post office for the South Bench area, outside the purview of the Yucaipa post office. His wish was granted in November 1929, but as usual with a new post office, it needed a name.
Sheppard decided to have a contest to gather potential names for the new post office, and, by default, the area.
Margaret Church, the wife of the local physician, won the contest by submitting the name Calimesa, simply a fusion of the first part of California with the word Mesa, indicative of the tableland upon which it sits. For her prize, she was given $10. The name Calimesa, by all indications, became an instant success. By 1930, there was a Yucaipa-Calimesa Chamber of Commerce, adding an early legitimacy to the name.
With the explosive growth in population seen throughout Riverside County starting in the 1980s, the Calimesa area grew such that it was decided to form a city. That occurred on Dec. 1, 1990.
