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Upland Public Library Local History Collection For more information on the copyright or about this image, please contact the Upland Public Library at (909) 931-4205 or ci.upland.ca.us/#Local_History
Description
This document is an interview with Margaret Klusman Bassett that took place in 1981. Klusman Bassett was the daughter of John Henry Klusman, who had been recognized in Brown’s History of the San Bernardino and Riverside Counties. She told the interviewer that she had been to the Rancho Cucamonga Historical Society meeting the night before the interview to honor her father. She discussed having lived in the area for her whole life after being born in 1916. She discussed how her father had built the Mission Winery in Cucamonga after he came to the area in 1892 from Germany. She discussed how her father and Colonel M.E. Post worked together in the vineyards and eventually decided to build a winery together. They had to sell the winery after Prohibition came into law after World War I. With the money he made from selling the winery, he bought land and began to build the Sycamore Hotel. Later he sold the hotel, after struggling to find a manager to run it, and bought a citrus grove. The interview went on to discuss the families who had lived in the area and the businesses that they ran. Klusman Bassett discussed Klusman Avenue, which had been named for her father, who had been the president of the water company for many years; the water company office was on the street named after her father. Klusman Bassett discussed her education, graduating from Chaffey High School and then graduating from Stanford University with a liberal arts degree in psychology, political science, and history. Klusman Bassett and her husband worked in citrus packing until the industry declined. The interview discussed the flood of 1938 and the process of recuperating the area after the flood. Klusman Bassett and the interviewer discussed a number of other floods, the Cucamonga Wash, and the changing pattern in housing development. The interview concluded with a discussion of Klusman Bassett’s memories of her father.
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