Foothill Boulevard keeps Rialto's Route 66 and rail layer visible

Rialto can look like a modern Inland Empire city of homes, schools, warehouses, shopping centers, and busy roads. Foothill Boulevard gives you a way to see the older city underneath that everyday traffic.

The city was incorporated in 1911, but its local history reaches through Serrano settlement, Mexican land-grant life, ranching, farming, and railroad growth. The townsite was laid out in 1887 after the Santa Fe Railroad was extended between San Bernardino and Los Angeles.

Then the road story arrived. Foothill Boulevard was repaired in 1913 and later became part of U.S. Route 66. In 1914, Pacific Electric finished its San Bernardino Line through Rialto, with a junction at Riverside Avenue for the Riverside Line. That means Rialto had rail and road layers working through the same growing town.

You can still read pieces of that older map around Riverside Avenue, Foothill Boulevard, Bud Bender Park, and local history stops. It gives Rialto more texture than a freeway glance can show: rail town, citrus-era community, roadside corridor, and fast-growing Inland Empire city all in one place.