Riverside is the largest city in the Inland Empire Metropolitan Area of Southern California, and is approximately 60 miles east of Los Angeles, and 12 miles southwest of San Bernardino. Riverside is the county seat of Riverside County, and is named for its location beside the Santa Ana River. Riverside is the birthplace of the California citrus industry, home of the Mission Inn Hotel, the largest Mission Revival Style building in the United States, and home of the Riverside National Cemetery. As of 2008, Riverside had an estimated population of 311,575.
Riverside is the home of La Sierra University, California Baptist University and the University of California, Riverside, which has a citrus experimental station and a salinity lab. Attractions in the area include Riverside Metropolitan Museum, which houses exhibits and artifacts of local history, the California Museum of Photography and the California Citrus State Historic Park. The Parent Washington Navel Orange Tree, planted in 1873 and one of two original orange trees in California, and the historic Mission Inn are landmarks in the city.
History
See also: History of Riverside, CaliforniaThe city was founded in the early 1870s beside the Santa Ana River by John W. North, a staunch temperance-minded abolitionist from Tennessee, who had previously founded Northfield, Minnesota. A few years after, the navel orange was planted and found to be such a success that full-scale planting started. Riverside was temperance minded, and Republican. There were 4 saloons in Riverside when it was founded. The license fees were raised until the saloons moved out of Riverside. Investors from England and Canada transplanted traditions and activities adopted by prosperous citizens. As a result, the first golf course and polo field in Southern California were built in Riverside.
The first orange trees were planted in 1871, but the citrus industry Riverside is famous for beginning three years later (1874) when Eliza Tibbets received three Brazilian navel orange trees sent to her by a personal friend, William Saunders who was a horticulturist at the United States Department of Agriculture in Washington, D.C. The trees came from Bahia, Brazil. The Bahia Orange did not do well in Florida, however it's success in Southern California was monumental.
The three trees were planted on the Tibbets' property. One of the trees died after it was trampled by a cow during the first year it was planted. After the trampling other two trees were then transplanted to property belonging to Sam McCoy as the trees were not being cared for well enough by L. C. Tibbets, Eliza's husband. The trees were again transplanted, one at the Mission Inn property in 1903 by President Theodore Roosevelt, (this tree died in 1922) and the other was placed at the intersection of Magnolia and Arlington Ave. Eliza Tibbets was honored with a stone marker placed with the tree.
The trees thrived in the Southern California climate and the navel orange industry grew rapidly. Many growers purchased bud wood and then grafted the cuttings to root stock. Within a few years, the successful cultivation of many thousands of the newly discovered Brazilian navel orange led to a California Gold Rush of a different kind: the establishment of the citrus industry, which is commemorated in the landscapes and exhibits of the California Citrus State Historic Park and the restored packing houses in the Downtown's Marketplace district. By 1882, there were more than half a million citrus trees in California, almost half of which were in Riverside. The development of refrigerated railroad cars and innovative irrigation systems established Riverside as the wealthiest city per capita by 1895.
As the city prospered, a small guest hotel designed in the popular Mission Revival style, known as the Glenwood Tavern, eventually grew to become the Mission Inn, favored by presidents, royalty and movie stars. Inside was housed a special chair made for the sizable President William Howard Taft. The hotel was modeled after the missions left along the California coast by Franciscan friars in the 16th and 17th centuries. (Although Spanish missionaries came as far inland as San Bernardino (San Bernardino de Sena Estancia), east of Riverside, there was no actual Spanish mission in what is now Riverside.) Postcards of lush orange groves, swimming pools and magnificent homes have attracted vacationers and entrepreneurs throughout the years. Many relocated to the warm, dry climate for reasons of health and to escape Eastern winters. Victoria Avenue with its landmark homes serves as a reminder of European investors who settled here.
At the entrance to Riverside from the 60 freeway sits Fairmount Park. This extensive urban oasis was designed by Frederick Law Olmsted. Slightly fraying around the edges, it still has a lovely, stocked pond, and many species of birds. Nearby, on private land, is the former site of Spring Rancheria, a Cahuilla village.
To the east of downtown is the originally named "Eastside," which grew out of a colonia inhabited by Mexican immigrant workers in the Orange groves, other orchards and produce fields. The area these people liven in was called Agua Mansa. Mexican communities were also formed in the barrio of Casa Blanca during the early twentieth century. That tradition continues today, with Oaxacan workers in the place of Spanish speakers. Michael Kearney, an anthropologist at University of California, Riverside, refers to this vast transnational labor space as "Oaxacalifornia."
Asian-American history
Settlements of Japanese and Korean migrants used to exist along the railroad tracks, which would fill with thousands of workers during the citrus harvest. None of these remain, but the Santa Fe depot, like several others in the Inland Empire, has been restored to its turn-of-the-century glory. Today, many of Riverside's Asian Americans live in the sections of Arlington and La Sierra, the majority being Chinese American and Korean American. The largest Korean American church in the city is Riverside Korean Baptist Church near Arlington.
Riverside used to boast one of the largest Chinatowns in California, but the last resident, Mr. Wong, died in the 1970s and the remaining (decrepit) buildings were razed. Extensive archaeological excavation took place in the 1980s, and many artifacts are housed at the newly re-named Metropolitan Museum across from the Mission Inn Hotel. The City of Riverside Planning Commission and City Council are in the final stages of approving the construction of a medical building on the site, which has spurred opposition. A new organization called the Riverside Chinese Culture Preservation Committee formed in the summer of 2008 with the goal of protecting the site from commercial development.
In 1915 a Japanese immigrant named Jukichi Harada, proprietor for many years of a local restaurant, purchased a home in Riverside in the names of his American-born children in order to provide access for them to the public school system. Neighbors formed a committee and charged him with violating the California Alien Land Law of 1913, which barred aliens ineligible for citizenship from owning land. The case, The People of the State of California v. Jukichi Harada , became a test of the constitutionality of the law and progressed to the state Supreme Court, where the Haradas won. The Metropolitan Museum of Riverside now owns the Harada House, which has been designated a National Historic Landmark.
Dalip Singh Saund, the first Asian-born politician elected to the United States Congress (and the only Sikh), was voted into office in 1956 to represent a district that included Riverside.
Filipinos have been in Riverside for over 100 years. Known as the Pensionados they were Philippine nationals sent to live in the United States to learn the principles of liberty and self-government.
African-American history
At the intersection of Howard and 12th sits the last remnants of a formerly thriving African-American neighborhood. The old Wiley Grocery store now houses the activities of "Black" Prince Hall Masons. Nearby is the Church of Our Lady of Guadalupe, a pilgrimage site complete with shrine. Built and destroyed three times, the current incarnation dates from the 1920s. And the Bobby Bonds recreation center named for the major league baseball legend.
Sports History
Riverside was home to the Riverside International Raceway from September 22, 1957, to July 2, 1989. Races held at the Riverside International Raceway included Formula One, NASCAR, Can-Am, USAC, IMSA, IROC, and CART. The raceway was closed to make way for a shopping mall and housing development shortly after the raceway property was incorporated with the city of Moreno Valley in 1984. In 2003, plans were announced to build a 3-mile (4.8 km) road course near Merced, California, based on the design of the Riverside layout. The new track will be known as the Riverside Motorsports Park.
Riverside has had three minor league baseball teams, one in 1941—the Riverside Reds—and two from the class-A Califo
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