Kipp Kobayashi and Marta Perlas
Ontario
Founder's Garden
Euclid Avenue, between Haven and Millikin Avenue, Ontario
San Bernardino County Thomas Guide page 603, grid C6

In 1998 artists Kipp Kobayashi and Marta Perlas were tapped to design a gateway to Ontario--one that paid homage to the role water played in the city's history.

"We decided on a sluice because it was a strong image, something that draws you in," Kobayashi said. "We liked the image of the water coming down from the mountains and nourishing the area below."

City founder George Chaffey combined sluices, canals, wells and aqueducts to get water from the mountains to nourish the city, agriculturally and economically. The story goes that Chaffey, hoping to sell land, had a fountain built next to the railroad. Whenever a train pulled into station, the fountain turned on--a visual assurance that this land was fertile and well irrigated.

Kobayashi and Perlas worked with landscape architect LRM, Ltd. to create "Founder's Garden," a 13.5-acre installment that includes olive trees, roses and grapes--crops that built the city. A sluice feeds a series of four fountains that represent a water drilling tower, a well, an aqueduct and a reservoir. At the south end of the project is a surveyor's scope. Look through it to see a picture of the city at the turn of the 19th century. Then, as now, water had a starring role.