Unattended Death and Biohazard Cleanup in Calimesa, CA

Calimesa got its name from a contest: in June 1929 nearly 100 residents decided to apply for their own post office and held a naming contest with a $10 prize, and 'Calimesa' - combining 'cali' for California with 'mesa,' the Spanish word for 'table' - was chosen from 107 names submitted.

Calimesa is a young city: it was incorporated on December 1, 1990, soon after the incorporation of its northern neighbor, the City of Yucaipa.

Before incorporation, the town of Calimesa straddled the Riverside-San Bernardino county line where Interstate 10 climbs the San Gorgonio Pass, but because California law prohibits a city from crossing county lines, the portion north of the line ended up in Yucaipa instead.

The Serrano people and the Cahuilla people were the original inhabitants of the Calimesa area.

Calimesa began as a small rural town of mostly single-family homes and ranches, and it took on a separate identity from larger neighboring Yucaipa after U.S. Route 99 - now Interstate 10 - brought businesses through town.

The 2020 census counted 10,026 residents in Calimesa, up sharply from 7,879 in 2010 and just 4,647 in the 1990 census taken right at incorporation.

Calimesa has about 3,965 households (2020-2024 Census figures), averaging 2.74 people per household.

Calimesa is a city of homeowners: about 89.3% of its housing units were owner-occupied in 2020-2024.

The city covers about 14.9 square miles, all of it land, in the northwestern portion of Riverside County between Yucaipa and Beaumont.

Calimesa's best-known school is Mesa Grande Academy, a private Seventh-day Adventist K-12 school founded in 1928 that has operated at its Fremont Street campus since 1974; public-school students attend Yucaipa-Calimesa Joint Unified schools such as Calimesa Elementary.