Fontana, CA news and local guide

World War II transformed it. Henry J. Kaiser built the Kaiser Steel plant just outside the city, then one of only two steel mills west of the Mississippi. To care for the workers, Kaiser built the Fontana Kaiser Permanente medical center, part of what became the largest managed care organization in the United States. In the 1950s and 1960s Mickey Thompson's Fontana International Dragway, known as Fontana Drag City, was a stop on the NHRA circuit. It is gone, but the owners of the Auto Club Speedway opened a new drag strip nearby in 2006. The Ro-Val automobile museum on Foothill Boulevard held classic cars of the 1920s and 1930s, including one owned by Fatty Arbuckle, and its collection was later sold to Bill Harrah. The city grew from 128,929 people in 2000 to 212,704 in 2020, with large new developments in the north and annexations of nearby county areas in 2006 and 2007. In 2021 the California Attorney General sued the city under the state's environmental quality law over warehouse development in low-income neighborhoods. Sources Wikipedia: Fontana, California