Getting to Know Highland
How Highland Sits
Highland is a city in San Bernardino County, in the northeastern part of the San Bernardino Valley, about sixty-five miles east of downtown Los Angeles and fifty miles west of Palm Springs. It covers nearly nineteen square miles and had about 57,000 people at the 2020 census, including the neighboring East Highlands community. It sits at the southern base of the San Bernardino Mountains, with the land rising from around 1,300 feet on the valley floor toward the national forest. The Santa Ana River runs along its southern edge, City Creek crosses it, and the 210 Freeway runs through the city.
The city grew from the citrus industry. Settlers arrived in the 1850s, dug irrigation ditches from the Santa Ana Canyon, and planted orange groves across the foothills in the 1880s. The Santa Fe Railway was built to carry the fruit to market, and the original townsite was founded in 1891. Highland is primarily a residential community today, offering a range of affordable housing, which draws families priced out of Los Angeles and Orange counties.
Highland is also home to East Highlands Ranch, a master-planned community of premium housing and private recreation built on former citrus land, and to the Highland Historic District on Palm Avenue, where the original townsite, old packing houses, and the early commercial core still stand. The Sam J. Racadio Library and Environmental Learning Center, a LEED gold building with a rooftop garden, anchors the civic life of the city. The result is a spread-out, family-centered city that pairs foothill neighborhoods with citrus-era roots and newer planned communities.
From Citrus Groves to a Foothill City
The land was home to the Serrano people, who lived along the foothills and the Santa Ana River. Settlement by newcomers began in 1856 in the northeast, at what is now the Village Lakes area near Fifth and Orange streets, a section first known as Cramville after the Cram family. To the west, Henry Rabel arrived in 1857 and settled along Base Line, and his land became known as Rabel Springs for the clear water from its wells.
The citrus era made the town. Lewis Cram and Frederick Van Leuven built an irrigation ditch from the Santa Ana Canyon in 1858, and orange and fruit groves spread across the foothills in the following decades. A settlement called Messina grew up at Base Line and Palm Avenue in 1873, and the Southern Pacific and then the Santa Fe railroads reached the valley to carry the citrus crop, with the famous Kite-shaped Track Loop running through the area.
The original Highland townsite was founded in 1891 and grew into a center of the citrus belt. As neighboring San Bernardino began annexing pieces of the area in the 1980s, residents organized to keep their independence, and Highland incorporated as a city on November 24, 1987. The citrus groves gradually gave way to housing, and master-planned neighborhoods like East Highlands Ranch rose on the old grove land. The orchard town became the residential city it is today.
What a Highland Move Really Involves
Highland is spread out and built on rising ground, so most moves here turn on the home and the terrain rather than a tight street grid. The first thing we settle is where the truck can sit and how the items reach it. In the foothill neighborhoods that means sloped streets and longer carries. In the planned tracts it means checking for an association or a gate. In the older sections it means a regular carry from a flat lot. We settle the access ahead of the day.
The home itself comes next. A foothill home may sit up a sloped street or driveway with a longer path to the door. A newer tract home holds a lot of furniture across two stories. An older home near the historic district sits on a flat lot with a straightforward approach. We confirm the grade, the driveway, any gate, and the haul length beforehand, and bring the protection and crew to match.
The third factor is the spread of the city. Because Highland covers nearly nineteen square miles and climbs from the valley into the foothills, even a local move can cover real ground, and the route and timing matter. We map the drive, the parking at each end, and the order of work so the day moves smoothly. Door, railing, and floor protection are standard, and the handling for fragile and valuable pieces is planned ahead. With the access, the home, and the route worked out beforehand, the crew runs without pause once on site.