Emergency Biohazard Cleanup Near Sandstone Mentone, CA

Mentone is an unincorporated census-designated place in San Bernardino County whose motto is the Home of "Oranges on the Rocks," and locals affectionately call it "Mentone Beach" despite its inland location.

Mentone was created in 1886 when William H. Drew and Nathaniel Kellog "N.K." Fairbanks formed the Mentone Corporation and bought 3,000 acres east of the Lugonia colony on the south bank of the Santa Ana River; the Santa Fe Railroad established a stop there the same year.

Mentone was named after Menton, France, and its townsite map was filed on February 24, 1888, with the Mentone Post Office opening on May 15, 1891.

Mentone's original surveyor, William P. McIntosh, named the north-south streets for gemstones and the east-west streets after beach resorts.

The Mentone Hotel opened in 1892 and was promoted as an inland beach resort on the Santa Fe's "Kite-Shaped Track" tourist route, but it failed and was converted into a sanitarium for tuberculosis and asthma patients by 1900, closing in 1917.

Mentone became a center for navel orange groves and olive trees, and unlike its neighbors Lugonia, Crafton, and Redlands, it never incorporated and remains under county jurisdiction today.

Mentone has a large Portuguese American community descended from immigrants from Santa Maria in the Azores, which has celebrated the Festa do Espírito Santo there since 1919.

Mentone had a population of 9,557 at the 2020 census, up from 8,720 in 2010.

Mentone had 3,344 households in the 2020 census, with an average household size of 2.84 people and about 59.0% of occupied homes owner-occupied.

Mentone's main street is State Route 38, called Mentone Boulevard, which is one of only three gateways into the San Bernardino Mountains.