Pomona City Stables, California

What is Pomona City Stables?

Its other name is the City Yards Brick Building. This is a work stable from the days when city services ran on horsepower, and it was built in brick rather than wood. It stands on White Avenue, a little north of the old Southern Pacific rail line. Today a fenced lot surrounds it, used by the city to store vehicles, fuel and other materials, and years of neglect have left the structure badly run down.

History of Pomona City Stables

The stables opened in April 1909 at a cost of six thousand dollars. Davis, who worked with the Davis and Higgs firm, was busy in Pomona in those years; his other local work includes the Currier House (finished in 1907), Trinity Methodist Church, the Ebell Club and the Masonic Lodge. When the doors opened, twenty-two city-owned horses and a caretaker moved in, and a Los Angeles newspaper praised the building as practical and roomy.

Recognition came almost a century later. In 2003 the city's Historic Preservation Commission urged landmark status, and the National Register listing followed in October 2004. The listing, however, has not stopped the decay.

Visiting Pomona City Stables: tips

This is a view-from-outside stop. The building sits inside a working municipal yard, not a visitor site, so look from the public street and respect the fence and any posted signs. A few minutes is enough. Pair it with AMOCA, the ceramic art museum about half a mile away, and the Pomona Fox Theater, also about 0.5 miles off. La Casa Alvarado, another historic building, is roughly a mile away.