Agua Mansa ("gentle water") is a former settlement in an unincorporated area of San Bernardino County, near Colton, California, United States. Now a ghost town, only the cemetery remains, it once was the largest settlement in San Bernardino County.The town was established in 1845 in Mexican Alta California. It was on the Santa Ana River, across from the Mexican era settlement of La Placita. Agua Mansa and La Placita were the first non-native settlements in the San Bernardino Valley. Together known as "San Salvador", they were also the largest settlements between Santa Fe de Nuevo México and the Pueblo de Los Ángeles in the 1840s.
Agua Mansa is designated California Historical Landmark (No. 121). The marker is located at Agua Mansa Pioneer Cemetery, the only site that remains of the once flourishing town. The first burial occurred in 1852, and the last occurred 111 years later in 1963. In 1955, a descendant of the original Agua Mansa families established "Friends for the Preservation of the Agua Mansa Pioneer Cemetery" and the volunteers of this group refurbished the cemetery, fenced it off and added a gate. In 1967, the cemetery became a branch of the San Bernardino County Museum after its acquisition by San Bernardino County.
Records of who is buried in the cemetery are incomplete but about 1,400 (as of October 2018) names have been identified out of a total of 2,000 estimated burials. Only a few grave markers remain today. The earliest known interment was that of Louis Robidoux, who came to California in 1844 and bought the Jurupa Rancho near today's City of Riverside. Another burial was that of Cornelius Jensen in 1886; Jensen was a Danish sea captain who established a store at Agua Mansa before moving to part of the Robidoux ranch. Jensen's wife, Mercedes Alvarado, is also buried in the cemetery along with other members of her family. Lorenzo Trujillo, the original patriarch of the community, is also believed to rest somewhere in a grave that long ago lost its marker. Isaac Slover, a mountain man and bear hunter who came to California in his old age (and who was killed in 1854 by a bear), is also buried in the cemetery.
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