Model Colony History Room

The Model Colony History Room highlights the history of Ontario and the western region of San Bernardino County. It provides access to collections of books, newspaper articles, brochures, booklets, photographs, maps, and more!

Plan a Visit

Are you a student assigned to research a local person, place, or thing? There is library staff that can help you.

Want to find pictures of your old classmates, friends, or relatives? We have high school yearbooks for Chaffey, Ontario, and Colony high schools, and some from neighboring high schools. Give us a call to see if we have the yearbook you’re looking for.

Looking for information on a local ancestor, an old business, or your historic Ontario house? The Model Colony History Room might have something in its collections. Come in and look at our Master Biography File, city directories, or building survey collection. You can search our online newspaper index here. 

Explore Local History Online

We are continuously digitizing photos, building surveys, and more to create Ontario Treasures, an online portal of Ontario history. This is a work in progress so please check back often to find what’s new. 

You can watch videos, listen to interviews, and look at images from the Model Colony History Room on the Internet Archive. 

Southern California's development is rooted in the water supply. The Claremont Colleges Libraries California Water Documents Collection contains documents related to area water history. Digitized documents from the Model Colony History Room, several other libraries, universities, and the National Archives are also available. 

Donations

If you have photos, documents, books, and other materials piling up in your attic, basement or garage or inherited local area photographs and other items. You can lighten your load while helping to preserve our local history. Please donate them to the Model Colony History Room!

The Model Colony History Room accepts donations of Ontario-related materials such as:

• Photographs of Ontario and the surrounding area
• Yearbooks for local schools
• Maps and aerial photos of the local area
• Books and audiovisual materials
  • written by local authors
  • set in the area
  • about Ontario and the vicinity, and local business, industry, agriculture, or culture
• Records for local businesses, families, clubs and organizations
• Ephemera items such as brochures, pamphlets, programs, menus, or catalogs related to Ontario and the surrounding area
• Written genealogies/histories for local area families

Finding Aids

A finding aid is a written inventory of a specific collection. We have several collections donated by individuals, families, and businesses. These collections include Armstrong Nurseries, General Electric Ontario Hotpoint Works, Ontario Motor Speedway, and more. Browse the finding aids below. 

Please contact us at least one day before planning a visit to view these collections. In your request, provide the name of the collection and the box number(s) you want to view for your research. Library staff can retrieve up to four boxes at a time. Please note that items in these collections are fragile and special handling is required.