Phillips Ranch is located on land which served as part of the ranch of Louis Phillips, who in 1864 acquired the southern end of the Rancho San Jose from two businessmen who had previously bought it from Ricardo Vejar. How much the very private Phillips’s fortune grew in these years is up for debate. In 1892, a reporter for the Pomona Progress interviewed Harris Newmark, who when asked, claimed unequivocally that the unassuming Phillips was the richest man in the county.