Sweet Life in Former Lemon Country : San Dimas: Housing tracts have replaced former citrus groves, but the city retains some of its turn-of-the-century flavor.

Thirty years ago, before the Foothill and Orange freeways were completed in eastern Los Angeles County, San Dimas was an unspoiled grove town isolated by the low-lying Ganesha Hills.

“You really needed a road map to find the town,” said Frank Cheney, a longtime resident.

The town’s early claims to fame were really only appreciated by citrus growers. San Dimas had what was then the world’s largest lemon packing house. For 25 years, labels boasted that local citrus was “grown in frost-free San Dimas.” A hard freeze in 1913 ended that slogan.

Little is left in San Dimas to mark that early era. Recently, the city’s last lemon grove, a six-acre parcel at San Dimas Avenue and Arrow Highway, was sold to a developer who wants to build condominiums.

By the 1960s, the groves, many weakened by “quick decline” disease, were giving way to housing tracts. The completed freeways acted as a funnel, easing building pressures in the Los Angeles area and spawning new development in San Dimas.

Located between La Verne, Glendora and Covina, the community spreads out beneath the San Gabriel Mountains. It now has a college, a country club, $1-million lake-view homes, an industrial zone, sprawling shopping centers, a county park, two telephone area codes and 33,000 people.

But not all of the city’s small-town atmosphere has disappeared. Many street signs are in Western type. Wood plank sidewalks line storefronts such as the San Dimas Mercantile and San Dimas Feed & Tack in downtown, giving the two-block long area a turn-of-the-century flavor.

The downtown Masonic Temple, although not considered a historic site, nonetheless has a historic role in former President Richard M. Nixon’s political career. His first public campaign stop was at the meeting hall in 1946. Nixon’s opponent was a hometown boy, Rep. Jerry Voorhis, whom he went on to defeat that year.

The town’s original residential area, which consisted of about 10 square blocks, has many well-preserved California bungalows, stone grove houses and Mediterranean revival-style homes dating from the 1920s. Small cottages in this area can cost $140,000.

In the city’s newer middle-class neighborhoods to the west of downtown, homes range in price from $225,000 to $400,000. In hillside areas that overlook Puddingstone Reservoir and a country club, homes are listed at $750,000 to $1.3 million.

There is little open land left for either residential or commercial projects, said Lawrence L. Stevens, the city’s community development director. The foothills are the exception, but hillside restrictions have made builders reluctant to break ground there.

One project of 52 new homes, directly north of the Foothill (210) Freeway, is built around a community riding stable. The site had been a nursery. Prices on the 12 remaining unsold homes range from $269,000 to $328,000.

Barbara Debernardo lives in a 1921 bungalow chosen for its location--walking distance from downtown. She and her late husband moved to San Dimas 25 years ago. “They’ll have to drag me away from this house,” she said.

Her oak-tree-lined street has several 20-year residents who have been holding annual block parties for eight years.

Debernardo, sitting on her porch with neighbor Louise Collins on a recent afternoon, still appreciates San Dimas’ small-town qualities, but she doesn’t yearn for its sleepier times.

“I like to go into a shop and have someone know me,” Debernardo said. ‘But when you come to a rural community, you can’t stop progress any more than you can stop wrinkles.”

Chosen Mrs. San Dimas of 1955, Collins arrived in 1939, a newlywed from Texas. Although her children would prefer she relocate, she doesn’t want to pull up roots. “I couldn’t fathom not knowing my neighbors,” said Collins, who is a widow.

Collins’ favorite hometown institution is Roady’s, a downtown restaurant that serves as a hangout for longtime residents. Coffee is 55 cents. Ham and eggs is $3.50. Debates on world problems are free.

“Roady’s is the answer to the U.N.,” chimed in Debernardo.

At 25 miles from downtown Los Angeles, San Dimas is about as far away as Woodland Hills, Anaheim or Rancho Palos Verdes. But it’s far cheaper to buy a home.

Seven years ago, when Cathy and George Preston began house hunting, San Dimas seemed like a perfect solution. “We wanted to find a place that was more rural,” said Cathy Preston, who moved from Temple City in 1983.

She and her husband, George, who now have two daughters, Courtney, 3, and Kirstyn, 5, bought a four-bedroom home in a 12-year-old housing tract on Bristol Road. ‘We got more for our money,” Preston said.

While her home wouldn’t be considered rural by most standards, Preston likes the street’s large lots, street-side mail boxes and quiet neighborhood.

“We’re planning on staying,” she said, noting that her home has appreciated by about $100,000. Nearby houses are listed for $225,000. Today, the family couldn’t afford to buy in the same neighborhood.

In contrast, Bobbie Griffiths says the home she bought a year ago for $259,000 in Via Verde--and now wants to sell--has declined in value.

“The same size houses are selling for less,” said Griffiths, a saleswoman, who moved to San Dimas from Garden Grove when she began working in Ontario. She and her husband, Steve, who has since been transferred to Kent, Wash., chose San Dimas because he had a friend who lived in town.

“We moved here in March, and you could see the mountains,” Griffiths said. “By June, you couldn’t. The air is real dirty,” she said. “I wasn’t used to it. I can’t say it’s the greatest place in the world.”

Air pollution, of course, wasn’t an issue for the area’s first settlers, a band of explorers headed by Jedediah Strong Smith. He camped in 1826 at a swamp that was called Mud Springs.

The long-dry springs are located on what is now Palomares Street. The street got its name from Ignacio Palomares, one of the two Spanish dons given immense land grants in the area in 1837.

Palomares was tormented by cattle rustlers, who hid out in a canyon. He cursed them by invoking the name of Dismas, the repentant thief on the cross, and the rustler’s canyon became known as San Dimas. Hence, the town’s name.

Like many foothill towns, San Dimas got its start when the Santa Fe Railway completed its line in 1887. With promotional rail fares from the Midwest dropping as low as $1, a land boom ensued. But speculation in 1888 was followed by a land bust in 1889.

The railroad hotel--a 30-room, 14-fireplace, four-bathroom extravaganza--never had a paying guest. It was sold for $20,000 in 1889 to the J.W. Walker family of Kentucky, who became growers. The building, on the National Register of Historic Places, is now a well-patronized restaurant, the San Dimas Mansion.

AT A GLANCE Population 1989 estimate: 34,553 1980-89 change: 43.9% Median Age: 32.8 years Annual Income Per capita: $17,100 Median household: $49,586 Household Distribution: Less than $15,000: 8.0% $15,000-30,000: 13.7% $30,000-50,000: 29.1% $50,000-$75,000: 30.9% $75,000 +: 18.3%