Two Centuries in the Making

1774 — 1858: An Oasis in the Valley

In March 1774, Spanish explorer Captain Juan Bautista de Anza came upon a lush oasis of giant sycamore trees beside a natural creek. The Spanish named the grove “Arroyo Los Osos,” later known as Bear Gulch. Felipe Santiago Tapia, one of Anza’s soldiers, chose to stay in the region, and his descendant Tiburcio Tapia received a land grant in 1839 for Rancho Cucamonga — more than 13,000 acres.

By 1858, American settler John Rains had purchased the rancho for roughly $8,500. He and his wife, Maria Merced Williams, built a fire-bricked home on the property and planted over 125,000 grapevines for wine production.

The Mountain View Inn Era

As traffic grew along the route between San Bernardino and Los Angeles, William “Uncle Billy” Rubottom saw an opportunity for hospitality and established the Mountain View Inn — famous, by all accounts, for corndodgers, buttermilk biscuits, and good Southern fried chicken.

1920 — Present: The Sycamore Inn Takes Shape

John Klusman began building the inn you'd recognize today in 1920, modeling it after the German country inns he admired — a place, in his words, “to gather.” In 1939, Danish immigrant Irl Hinrichsen acquired the property, renamed it The Sycamore Inn, and closed the hotel rooms for good, setting the Inn on its path as a restaurant.

During Route 66’s heyday through the 1930s–60s, the Inn hosted travelers making their way to Las Vegas and Palm Springs, celebrities among them. Local folklore holds that both Marilyn Monroe and Elizabeth Short dined here before their deaths — a detail that's followed the Inn's story ever since.

In 2002, new ownership under Linda and Chuck Keagle, Brady Main, and Chef Louis Alvarez took the helm, carrying the Inn’s traditions — the hand-carved steaks, the minestrone soup, the wine list — into its next chapter.