When I photographed this old building on Church Avenue in Highland, California, in April 2016, the enormous faded PORTOFAB lettering was what first caught my attention. Beneath it, an even older-looking sign identifying a fabrication and machine works business was slowly disappearing into the stucco. A much smaller sign over the window told another part of the story: welding and fabricating equipment was for sale.
Portofab had been part of the Inland Empire’s metalworking trade for decades. Construction-industry records list the company as far back as 1982, specializing in structural-steel fabrication along with miscellaneous and ornamental ironwork and serving projects throughout San Bernardino, Riverside and Orange counties.
The shop itself appears to have an even longer history than the business whose name remained painted across its wall. A historical-resources survey identifies two parcels at 8009 Church Avenue, with buildings dating from before 1959 and, on one parcel, before 1938. Long before Portofab’s welders and fabricators worked here, this little corner of Highland was already part of the area’s working landscape.
By 2016, however, things appeared to be changing. The equipment-for-sale sign, barred windows and weathered buildings suggested that Portofab’s days at the site were drawing to a close. Property records show a transaction involving the address the following year, in March 2017. More recently, another construction company has used 8009 Church Avenue as its registered business address, although the old Portofab name has survived in photographs and aging business directories.
What I like most about this photograph is the contrast. Rusting steel, cracked stucco and faded lettering sit beneath a brilliant blue Southern California sky, while bright pink oleanders seem completely unconcerned with the passing of another industrial business. Portofab may have been an ordinary working shop in its day, but places like this are part of the history of the Inland Empire—small businesses where things were welded, cut, machined and built, quietly disappearing one property at a time.