[1] After World War II, local leaders anticipated the return of young people to college.

They immediately began to meet on December 26, 1945, and set out to find a suitable location and hire staff.

[3] The lease began on July 1, 1946, and a newly hired staff immediately set out to open a college and begin to offer classes that fall.

With a meager budget of $191,790, faculty and staff worked relentlessly to gather furniture and supplies, design courses, and register students.

Family members and students voluntarily pitched in to help collect supplies and paint walls.

While the college accepts students from outside of the district and even internationally, its district focuses on serving communities on the eastern edge of Los Angeles County, including Baldwin Park, Bassett, Charter Oak, Covina, Diamond Bar, the southern portion of Glendora, Hacienda Heights, City of Industry, Irwindale, La Puente, La Verne, Pomona, Rowland Heights, San Dimas, Valinda, Walnut, and West Covina.

[7] The college has a 250-acre farm; a working veterinary hospital; student-run restaurant, new science classrooms and laboratory facilities; a music, dance, and theater building; multi-media/internet connected classrooms; a new Olympic-quality stadium and athletics complex, baseball complex; two soccer fields; and is home of the world-famous Mt.

It has an Olympic size swimming pool, tennis courts, and a working farm which includes horses, cattle, sheep, swine, and a canine facility that works with a greyhound rescue group to rehabilitate retired racing dogs each semester.

The school also has a 15-acre (6.1 ha) wildlife sanctuary that supports a large variety of native species of birds, mammals, and insects.

It is one of the last "safe" places for nature to exist in Walnut due to increased development and a growing population.

There are more projects in progress, the latest being a modern agricultural sciences complex, including a working animal hospital, set to complete construction in spring 2011.

More projects are also expected in the next few years as funds from a recently voter approved measure come in.

It maintains a flight training association on and off campus at nearby Brackett Airport, with a hangar and facilities made possible through donations from Sophia Clarke (renowned for also providing generous gifts for the modern and stately, state-of-the-art Sophia B. Clarke theater and its adjacent equally photogenic edifices).

Most recently, the team captured the national title at the 2024 Phi Rho Pi tournament.

[11] In 2023, the team won the Sylvia Mariner Perpetual Sweepstakes Award for earning accumulative points – an honor Mt.

Notable achievements include "Choir of the World" in 2007 at the famed Llangollen International Musical Eisteddfod in Wales.

SAC currently fields 23 intercollegiate sports including: baseball (M), basketball (M & W), beach volleyball (W), cross country (M & W), football (M), golf (M & W), soccer (M & W), softball (W), swimming (M & W), tennis (M & W), track and field (M & W), volleyball (W), water polo (M & W), and wrestling (M).

This event is held annually in April over a three-day period and attracts around 15,000 athletes from more than 150 colleges and universities and 150 high schools throughout the world.

SAC Cross Country Invitational has grown to be the largest event of its kind in the world.

The final climb runners must conquer before a steep descent to the flat finish area is Reservoir Hill, which is a steady uphill.

It is also designed for speed and wraps right around the spectator area for a finish at the gate entering Hilmer Lodge Stadium.

[citation needed] The current course high school record holders are Boys 14:23, Austin Tamagno (Brea Olinda), 2014, and Girls 15:49, Claudia Lane (Malibu), 2017.