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Crafton is an unincorporated community in San Bernardino County, California, United States, located east of Redlands, south of Mentone and west of Yucaipa, California. ==History== Crafton was one of the first communities established in the San Bernardino Valley area. Lewis Cram and his brothers had been in the business of making chairs at ''San Bernardino de Sena Estancia'' (also known as Old San Bernardino), but around 1857, they decided to move upstream along the community aqueduct (called the ''zanja'', Spanish for ditch) in order to gain more milling power from the water flow. Other settlers began to settle the area, planting barley, wheat, grapes, apples and peaches. George H. Crafts, Sr. bought land, known as the Altoona Ranch, in the area then called Eastberne in 1858 for his brother Myron, who arrived in 1861 to find George had already established a bounty of crops. In 1870, Myron H. Crafts planted an acre and a half of navel oranges, and the success of his crop soon convinced others in the area to plant larger plots. The Crafts ranch became popular as a resort; a person who regained his or her health there called it Crafton, and the area has been known by that name since. Soon, Crafton began to rival Old San Bernardino in agricultural production. Myron H. Crafts, said to be intelligent and energetic, had begun to divert too much water from the ''zanja'' which carried water from Mill Creek. In court in 1864, Dr. Benjamin Barton of Old San Bernardino claimed exclusive right to all water in Mill Creek, with Crafts to have none. The court took a compromise stance that allowed Crafts to have any water he could divert daily between three o'clock in the afternoon and nine at night.〔(California State University, San Bernardino. etextbooks. George William Beattie. ''Origin and Early Development of Water Rights in the East San Bernardino Valley'' November 1951 )〕 In 1867, W. W. McCoy filed a claim which would allow him to divert excess seasonal water from Mill Creek to his land in Crafton. His claim was denied at first but allowed later.〔 In 1870, another water suit was filed, this time by Crafts, for the purpose of once more defining his right to water in the ''zanja''. The court decision established that he had the right to four hours of water per day. In 1871, the court decided further that Crafts must divide the stream of water into two flows, one for others and a smaller one for himself, an order which Crafts did not carry out. Crafts bought his neighbor's farms to the east through which the ''zanja'' ran, and reasoned that, since he thought of the ditch as a natural stream, which it resembled in places, that he should have half of its water. Other farmers in the area disagreed and brought suit. This case was taken to the California Supreme Court, where Crafts lost.〔 The first Protestant religious service in San Bernardino Valley was held in the Crafts home in 1873.〔 Having accumulated of land by this time,〔 Myron H. Crafts established the Crafton Land and Water Company in 1882, and constructed a reservoir above the subdivision of Crafton: the Crafton Reservoir. The Crafton School District was organized in 1882, and a bond passed in 1887 to erect a schoolhouse first used in 1888. A post office was established in Crafton in 1885, with M.H. Crafts as postmaster.〔 In 1886, the Crafton Water Company was formed by other area residents who bought the reservoir from Crafts and expanded it. Initially, they owned 14% of ''zanja'' flow but by 1949 had increased ownership to 53%.〔 In the 1870s and 1880s, a number of Native Americans of the Cahuilla tribe remained living in Crafton, working at agricultural tasks and tending sheep and stock that were owned by white settlers. Myron Crafts constructed a store for trading with the natives in the early 1880s. The building's first floor was the general store; its second floor was used as a Sunday School.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Crafton, California」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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