The area is just outside the boundaries of the San Bernardino National Forest; nearby cities and communities include Verdemont, University Hills, Rancho Cucamonga, Fontana, and Rialto.

Glen Helen Pavilion/Amphitheater, the largest amphitheater in North America, is located just south of Devore.

It also includes several pieces of private property that border the Muscupiabe Rancho within the National Forest.

Ground water barriers exist between the San Andreas and Glen Helen Faults.

The name changed a few times, from El Cajon de Muscupiabe to Rancho Muscupiabe (both names were being used during the 1858 survey) to The Martin District (1887) to The Guernsey Tract (1895) to The Glen Helen Tract (1901) to Kenwood Heights (1903), and finally to Devore a year or so later.

He had become a Mexican citizen by then, had married a prominent Hispanic maiden, the daughter of Eulalie Perez, and his Spanish name was Don Miguel Blanco.

Two years later, the Whites sold the remaining half to Henry Hancock, the L.A. County deputy surveyor, who had originally surveyed the Rancho.

Kenwood Corporation, a clothing manufacturer specializing in railroad uniforms, was located in the ritzy part of Chicago and in Delaware.

A high-ranking official, possibly vice president, John A. Devore was sent to Southern California in 1901 at the age of 42 to cement relationships with the railroads.

In 1902, the Kenwood Corporation contracted with Chicago Title and Trust Company to mortgage the Devore property for $560,000 and to issue 2800 bonds worth $200 each.

John Devore’s vision for the land that now bears his name was evidently for a place of grace and beauty, and authors of his time lauded him for the lovely homes, rock walls, and gardens he had incorporated into the design of the community.

McGroarty in his 1914 History of Southern California says, “Devore is a station on the Santa Fe Railroad, nine miles north of San Bernardino, near the center of a new territory skirting the foothills.

(The Devore Depot was the largest, most ornate of the stations built along the Cajon Pass track for fuel and water stops for the train engines.)

La Fuze in her 1971 Saga of the San Bernardinos described early Devore as a thousand-acre bench showplace producing grapes, apples, peaches, pears, (and plums).

Middleman Falls was named after a New York farmer who settled in the area and was registered to vote in 1886.

Swarthout (farmers and transporters) and Cleghorn (lumber cutters) are also names of early settlers, as was John Hansen (now E. Kimbark).

Devore has been composed of fiercely independent residents who have valued solitude, privacy, the rural lifestyle, and appreciation of nature, both wild and domesticated, whether that is the way its founders intended or not—or whether that’s the way it stays.

Others move to Devore because its relative remoteness is conducive to concealing activities and lifestyles that would not be accepted in town.

Most of the mine claims filed were more practical than golden dreams: asbestos, calcite, talc, and clay.

Portland Cement was shipped from Europe until about 1904, so people had to mine calcite (lime) and make their own building materials.

Theodore and Harriet Walker, property dealers in Los Angeles bought over half of Devore in 1915.

Robert B. Peters, whose wife Florence was the daughter of the Theodore Walkers, also became involved in buying Devore land as early as 1915.

Peters also was instrumental in the formation of the Mesa Alta Orange Company, a large landholder in Devore from 1928 to 1940.