Pomona’s eclipsed rival, now a shadowy cemetery

Wild dogs appear and stare ominously while angry spirits whip up gusts of hot, dusty winds buffeting intruders - winds not felt beyond the willows ringing the cemetery. People report the shadow of a man materializing and then vanishing into James Fryer’s decaying tombstone or hearing the laughter of nonexistent children.

Some report sensation of being stabbed or strangled.

Objects vanish from one end of the cemetery and mysteriously reappear at another. At night, ghostly screams pierce the air as trains roar past momentarily blocking the light.

Or, maybe not. After all, it is October, and Halloween draws near.

All that remains of the once thriving village of Spadra is a small dilapidated cemetery once called Old Settlers (now Spadra) Cemetery, wedged between the 57 Freeway and the Southern Pacific rail lines near Elephant Hill in Pomona.

The cemetery is closed and marked with no-trespassing signs in English and Spanish. Best advice is not to go there, to avoid trespass and any hazards.

Before Pomona developed into a key city in the Inland Valley, Spadra was its first rival.

It was originally named Rubottom for the house and tavern built by William “Uncle Billy” Rubottom. When the Southern Pacific Rail Road line announced it was extending its line to Spadra in the late 1860s, Rubottom sold his first tavern (now the Sycamore Inn) in Rancho Cucamonga and built a new tavern to serve travelers between San Bernardino and Los Angeles.

Rubottom, who is buried in the cemetery, insisted the name change to San Jose when the first post office was commissioned. He later chose Spadra after his home town, when informed there was already a San Jose.

By 1870, Spadra boasted three stores, two blacksmith shops, warehouses, a post office and a school, along with Rubottom’s Tavern. Even millionaire Louis Phillips, a co-founder of Pomona, chose to build his historic mansion in Spadra.

Spadra also gained a reputation as a wild frontier town where a local minister was killed while assaulting the local constable. Hapless cheaters at the poker and monte tables of Rubottom’s were allegedly shot and quietly deposited into unmarked graves in Spadra Cemetery.

With the building of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Rail Road route further north in the 1890s, Pomona became the center of growth in the region, while Spadra languished. The completion of Route 66 sealed Spadra’s fate and Pomona annexed it in 1955.

There are more than 200 known interments in the cemetery, with at least 18 listed as unknown. The first recorded burial took place in 1868, the last in 1967. It is the final resting place for both Phillips and Rubottom, along with former State Senator and LA Sheriff Alvan Tyler Currier and Pomona First Baptist Church founder Richard Chamberlain Fryer.

Spadra disappeared, but unlike Wineville, Rochester or other local villages swallowed up by larger cities, it left behind something of its existence.