Agua Mansa, California
| Agua Mansa | |
|---|---|
| Ghost town | |
 Agua Mansa
Location within the state of California
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| Coordinates: 34°02′31″N 117°21′50″W / 34.04194°N 117.36389°WCoordinates: 34°02′31″N 117°21′50″W / 34.04194°N 117.36389°W | |
| Country | United States of America |
| State | California |
| County | San Bernardino |
| Elevation | 922 ft (281 m) |
| Time zone | Pacific (PST) (UTC-8) |
| • Summer (DST) | PDT (UTC-7) |
| GNIS feature ID | 238451 |
| Reference no. | 121 |
Agua Mansa ("gentle water") is a former settlement in an unincorporated area of San Bernardino County, near Colton, California, United States. Now a ghost town, only the cemetery remains, it once was the largest settlement in San Bernardino County.
The town was established in 1845 in Mexican Alta California. It was on the Santa Ana River, across from the Mexican era settlement of La Placita. Agua Mansa and La Placita were the first non-native settlements in the San Bernardino Valley. Together known as "San Salvador", they were also the largest settlements between Santa Fe de Nuevo México and the Pueblo de Los Ángeles in the 1840s.
The Agua Mansa Valley is located on the south side of Slover Mountain. The valley was 6 mi (9.7 km) in length; its width varied between .5 mi (0.80 km) and .75 mi (1.21 km), the variance depending on the river that flowed through the valley. The area was used as farmland, divided into at least one hundred fields, owned by separate farmers. The valley's lower end included a Frémont's cottonwoods (Populus fremontii) riparian forest owned by Rubidoux, while the upper end was a sandy plain that extended to the borders of present-day San Bernardino.
In 1845, Don Juan Bandini donated parts of his land grant Rancho Jurupa to a group of Mexican colonists from Abiquiú in Santa Fe de Nuevo México — on the condition that they would assist in protecting his stock from local Indian raids. Ten of these families moved to 2,000 acres (810 ha) on the "Bandini Donation" on the east side of the Santa Ana River, forming the village of La Placita, while a second group colonized the west side of the river, forming the town of Agua Mansa. The group that formed Agua Mansa was led by Don Jose Tomas Salajar, and included Cristobal Slover and Louis Rubidoux.
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