After 70 years, a new building for Ontario’s American Legion post
Military veterans know something about speedy maneuvers. So when members of Ontario’s American Legion Post 112 got their marching orders to leave their home of 70 years, they redeployed to their new outpost in double time.
“We closed on Sunday after breakfast, moved on Monday, were unpacking Tuesday, and on Wednesday, still unpacking, we were doing steak night,” bartender Trish Skowronski told me. “We had 60 dinners. We were packed.”
The new home, in an industrial area off Mission Boulevard, is about 3 miles from the old one. The city of Ontario wanted that property, in a neglected portion of downtown off Holt Boulevard, for affordable housing.
Legionnaires weren’t wild about moving. But the frequent presence of homeless people in the parking lot and patio was making the members, most of them seniors, nervous. Membership and participation dropped.
And veterans recognized that their old building at 310 W. Emporia St. was a casualty of age and the lack of money to renovate it.
“You just couldn’t maintain it,” post commander Dick DuPlain said.
“Our roof was caving in,” said his wife, Rosie, president of the Auxiliary.
“When the city came to us,” Dick said, “it was a blessing in disguise.”
I visited the new facility, 1400 S. Vineyard Ave., on Wednesday in advance of its Saturday dedication — more on that in a bit — and chatted with the DuPlains and Jimmy Melton, a member of the executive committee.
Chartered in 1921 with 125 members, Post 112 met first at the Hotpoint factory clubhouse and then at a house donated by nurseryman John Armstrong before its 10,000-square-foot clubhouse was built in 1953, according to a city staff report.
The architect was Jay Dewey Harnish, who designed hospitals in Upland, Pomona, Covina, Whittier and Fontana, according to his obituary. (His wife, Jerene Appleby Harnish, was the much
feared publisher of the Ontario Daily Report from 1936-1965. (She remains a legend.)
In the 1950s and 1960s, the post had a busy slate of activities, including a popular fish fry and monthly dinner dances, and sponsored Little League and Pony League baseball teams. In 1969, according to a post history, its 1,400 members made Post 112 the state’s second largest.
Well, the Vietnam era was not kind to the American Legion or the idea of military service. But Post 112 has kept truckin’ with four units, charity work and weekend breakfasts, to which the public is invited.
Weekend breakfasts? “Everybody compliments us on our breakfasts,” Dick DuPlain bragged. “We can even compete with Red Hill Coffee Shop.”
On Saturday afternoon, after the breakfast, Post 112 will celebrate its new home with music, dancing and festivities from 1 to 9 p.m. Ceremonies are at 3 p.m. The public is welcome.
A replica Civil War cannon was donated by Petrina Delman, whose late husband, Richard, bought it for the lobby of his business, Otto Instrument Service.
How did the American Legion get its new building? No blood was shed, thankfully. The city of Ontario got it for them. (Ontario taketh but also giveth. Blessed be Ontario.)
“We didn’t get any cash. The building was like a trade,” Dick DuPlain explained.
DuPlain and Melton walked me through the facility. The kitchen has two ovens, a grill, a stove and two deep-fryers. There’s a walk-in freezer and cooler, replacing six separate refrigerators and freezers at the old building.
“We never had a dishwasher at the old building. We had to handwash everything,” Rosie said.
Appliances are not only new, they’re energy-efficient, as is the air conditioning, and the LED lighting operates by motion detectors.
“If we don’t move for 10 minutes,” Dick DuPlain told me, “we’ll be in the dark and you won’t be able to take notes.” Fat chance. My pen moves too quickly.
“A lot of money flowed into this building for us,” DuPlain said. “Everything we asked for we pretty much got.”
“They were very gracious,” Melton said of City
Hall, “and helped us get in here. They’ve been great partners.”
About the only complaint is less parking, but everyone’s working on it.
Since the Dec. 19 move, old members are returning and 30 have joined.
“I meet people every day who walk in the door and want to become a member,” said Skowronski, the bartender. The Legion is open to anyone who served any branch of the U.S. military or their family, and to descendants of a service member, like a father or grandfather.
Leonard Erhardt of Ontario, who was at the bar Wednesday, said he joined in honor of his Air Force brother. “I think it’s beautiful,” he said of the new digs. “The old place, it was falling apart.”
The city needed the old Legion headquarters and five other properties for Phase 2 of its Emporia Family Housing development, which will bring 50 affordable apartment units.
The Legion claimed its small sign that stood on the corner of Emporia and Palm. It’s now hanging on a wall behind the small stage.
More Ontario
A plaque was installed Wednesday morning to mark Ontario Landmark No. 21, the old Masonic
Hall at 231-233 N. Euclid Ave., courtesy of Ontario Heritage and City Hall. I was there to watch.
The two-story Neoclassical Commercial structure from 1904 originally housed three disparate uses: the public library and a savings and loan on the first floor, the Masonic Lodge fraternal organization on the second.
As the plaque’s text puts it, “The building represents the early social, cultural and commercial activity in Ontario” — all encapsulated in one structure.
Often vacant in modern times, it’s newly renovated for an Asian American restaurant, Unique Cafe, due to open in the coming weeks.
The onetime lodge upstairs is renovated into an event space with exposed bricks and ductwork, strings of lights, a stage and settings for photos, including two regal-looking chairs with pink upholstery next to a realisticlooking pink cherry blossom tree.
A circa-1904 Mason would pop his fez.