For centuries, Apple Valley was populated by Shoshonean, Paiute, Vanyume, Chemehuevi, and Serrano who were attracted to the water and vegetation around the Mojave River.

The Mojave people came later and were the tribal group encountered in 1542 by a detachment of Coronado's men.

Garcés established a trail across the Mojave to the Colorado River passing through the Apple Valley area.

Jedediah Smith established the Old Spanish Trail through the southern Mojave and Cajon Pass.

[8] Throughout the 19th century, Apple Valley became a thoroughfare of people traveling to Southern California for various reasons.

In 1848, members of the Mormon Battalion, mustered out of the U.S. Army after constructing the first wagon road across the southwest to San Diego and up to Los Angeles, brought 135 mules and the first wagon through the Cajon Pass up through the Mojave River Valley on the way to the Salt Lake Valley.

Battalion leader Jefferson Hunt and a crew of cowboys followed the trail with the first cattle drive from Southern California to hungry members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in present-day Utah.

Hunt led a Latter-day Saint group of settlers to the San Bernardino Valley in 1851.

In 1885, the railroad came northward through the Cajon Pass and established a train stop, calling it Victor (Victorville) on the Mojave River in the area then known as Mormon Crossing.

[9] One well-known apple orchard was owned by Max Ihmsen, publisher of the Los Angeles Examiner newspaper.

The fame of Apple Valley spread as Ihmsen's fruit won many agricultural awards.

[10] In the late 1930s, Ihmsen's son-in-law, Cal Godshall, took over the business operations and made the ranch famous as the birthplace of California college rodeo with the first intercollegiate rodeo competition held in the United States.

Apple farming in the area started to decline about the time Ihmsen Ranch fruit production was at its prime.

A series of outbreaks of a virulent fungal infection coupled with frost, heat, and hail in 1944, 1945, and 1946 ended commercial production.

[8] A small orchard was maintained on the grounds of the Apple Valley Inn until it closed in 1986.

The move was made in hopes of reaching more fans;[11] however, the museum closed for financial reasons on December 12, 2009.

The primary thoroughfare through Apple Valley is State Route 18, which was given the moniker "Happy Trails Highway" within Apple Valley town limits, after the theme song of Roy Rogers and Dale Evans, who once resided on Outer Highway 18.

The Mojave River that borders the west side of Apple Valley flows south-to-north.

The homeowner vacancy rate was 4.0%; the rental vacancy rate was 10.0%, and 45,483 people (65.8% of the population) lived in owner-occupied housing units and 23,191 people (33.5%) lived in rental housing units.

During 2009–2013, Apple Valley had a median household income of $48,432, with 20.2% of the population living below the federal poverty line.

Charter Schools Law enforcement is provided by the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department.