United States Rabbit Experimental Station

The federal government ran exactly one research station devoted to rabbits, and it stood here, on five acres A. B. Miller gave it in March 1928. Fontana was rabbit country, and the animal was cheap protein on the edge of the Depression: the station worked on breeding, feeding, disease and hutch design, and sent its findings out to backyard producers across the country. Fontana bought the property in 1965 and made it a senior center, a quiet second life for a laboratory.

What the plaque says

In March 1928, the Federal Government established the first and only experimental station in the United States devoted solely to research on the breeding and raising of rabbits on a five-acre property donated by A. B. Miller of Fontana. The station successfully pioneered new techniques of rabbit care and breeding until 1965 when the City of Fontana acquired the property for use as a senior citizens' facility.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Kaiser Steel Mill Site — 3.3 mi
  The mill that made Fontana a steel town, gave the country Kaiser Permanente, and drew a color line at Base Line Road.
• Wigwam Motel — 5.4 mi
  Nineteen concrete teepees on Foothill Boulevard, the last of Frank Redford's Wigwam Villages and still renting rooms.
• Mount Rubidoux — 8.6 mi
  The mountain all of Riverside walks — and the half-acre at the summit the city sold rather than go to court.
• Original McDonald's Site — 8.8 mi
  The corner where two brothers invented fast food, now an unofficial museum the corporation has never blessed.

More markers nearby

• Agua Mansa — 6.2 mi
• Site of Louis Rubidoux House — 7.6 mi
• Cornelius and Mercedes Jenson Ranch — 7.7 mi
• Site of Old Rubidoux Grist Mill — 7.7 mi