Patterson Trans Inc. delivers refrigerated freight, full truckload (FTL), less-than-truckload (LTL), and cross-docking services to businesses throughout Colton, California, a historic railroad hub and a close neighbor to our Fontana headquarters. With over 25 years of refrigerated transport experience and 60 years of combined team experience, our family-owned team keeps temperature-sensitive freight moving safely through one of the Inland Empire’s oldest transportation crossroads.
Industrial Freight at a 150-Year-Old Crossroads
Colton has been in the business of moving things since the 1870s, first by rail and now by highway, and the businesses that call it home today reflect that industrial heritage — cement and aggregate producers, manufacturers, and distributors that need dependable freight service. Our fleet is inspected on a strict preventive maintenance schedule and every refrigerated load is monitored in transit, giving Colton’s manufacturers the same dependability the Hub City has always been built around.
Family-owned for over 25 years, Patterson Trans Inc. runs full truckload, less-than-truckload, and cross-docking service throughout Colton, built for an industrial city that has never tolerated unreliable freight.
A Meeting Point Long Before the Railroad
Colton sits within traditional Serrano territory, part of the same valley network of villages that stretched across the San Bernardino basin. Fittingly for a city that would grow up around a literal crossing of two railroads, this land had always been a meeting point — a place where trade routes and travel paths converged long before any tracks were laid.
The Railroad Crossing That Started a Standoff
The Southern Pacific Railroad founded Colton in 1875, naming it after company vice president David Douty Colton, and on August 11 of that year the first train ever to enter the San Bernardino Valley rolled straight through it. As both east-west and north-south rail lines converged here, the town earned a nickname that’s still a point of civic pride today: Hub City — Colton’s own version of a “Motor City” identity, built entirely on being the place where things connect.
That crossing wasn’t always peaceful — in 1883, competing railroads clashed so fiercely over the Colton Crossing that the dispute escalated into an armed standoff involving Virgil Earp, brother of the famous Wyatt Earp and Colton’s first town marshal. At its busiest, more than 110 trains a day rolled through the crossing, and many early south Colton residents even built their homes from disassembled wooden shipping crates left behind by the railroad — resourceful builders making a hub city out of whatever the trains left behind.
Virgil Earp, brother of the famous gunfighter Wyatt Earp, served as Colton’s first town marshal from 1883 to 1889.
Get a Quote for Colton Refrigerated Freight
Whether you’re near the I-10/I-215 interchange or the historic rail corridor, call Patterson Trans Inc. at (909) 367-2848 or request a free quote today.