30 minute read
Hidden Gems
The Riversider | February/March 2022
The Homer
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Insubordinate Brown Ale by Wicks Brewing
The Donut Bar
WORDS: AARON SCHMIDT PHOTOS: ZACH CORDNER
Leche Flan
Red Velvet Smores On Fire
Situated nicely on the corner of Main Street and University Avenue, The Donut Bar is a family owned & operated donut shop that literally has the most sought after donuts in town—I should know, I’ve missed out on quite a few occasions just getting there right after they’ve sold out for the day. A unique one-of-a-kind concept that pairs donuts with beers, The Donut Bar owners Gil and Alessandra Rubalcaba originally opened the shop back in January 2020, and they just celebrated their two-year anniversary in the heart of the downtown area. “We were looking at several areas throughout the city and we needed somewhere downtown where we were able to serve everyone. We just happened to have lucked out that we got into a nice corner spot,” explained Gil. With its pink LED lights under the tables in the eating area, The Donut Bar is a fun and unique atmosphere where you can enjoy a beer and eat some of the best donuts in town—it’s kind of like a sports bar, but with donuts. “The Donut Bar is donuts, coffee, beer, vibes. We are a donut shop first and foremost and we serve a lot of different and interesting flavors like Lemon Pistachio, Mexican Hot Chocolate, or Leche Flan—just different types of flavors that everyone can enjoy. We’re pretty known for the Big Poppa Tart donut—it
Boston Crème
has a full size pop tart baked inside of our donut filled with more jelly and sprinkles. It’s a lot, but it’s great and really exciting,” said Gil with a smile. “We also include all the traditional classics like chocolate, maple, and glazed, etc.” With over a 100 flavors on hand on any given day, the most popular donuts include the Strawberry Split (one of their vegan options, but you’d never know it), Red Velvet, Smores On Fire, French Toast donut, and the Grilled Cheese donut—all made-toorder, completely delicious, and are local favorites for a good reason. Everything is made in-house from scratch inside the store, as they have a pretty good-sized kitchen, two proofers, two fryers, and bakers and decorators making the donuts. One master batch of donuts is produced daily where each one is carefully rolled, cut, and decorated by hand using only the finest ingredients. Their donuts pair perfectly with their extensive selection of fine local craft beers, brewed by their partners in the Inland Empire like Wicks Brewing and Stone Church Brewing. It should be noted they also offer four-to-five vegan options daily, as well, and they’re in the process of expanding their vegan menu. “With our donuts, you’re going to find flavors you’re not going to find anywhere else. The fact that we serve beer, wine, mimosas, and champagne— you’re not going to see that in any other donut shop in my opinion. We cater to everybody—from twoyear olds to 102 year olds,” said Gil. “There’s a little something for everybody—we’ve also got milk, juice, coffees, sodas, water, and a full expresso bar.” They also sell super fun merch like t-shirts, socks, and hats with cool The Donut Bar logos, so make sure to pick something up while you’re there to support this fine establishment, and help spread the word about this hidden gem to the rest of Riverside and the world.
Owner Gil Rubalcaba
One thing to know, though: Get there early because they sell out quick! Or if you’re unlucky like me and miss out by getting there late, it’s probably a good idea to preorder your donuts online at their website. It’s as easy as that. We’ll see you very soon, Gil!
The Donut Bar 3750 University Ave #175 (951) 742-5949 donutbarriverside.com @donutbarriverside
Inside the massive retrofitted attic of the Heritage House.
THINGS NOT SEEN BEHIND THE SCENES AT THREE OF RIVERSIDE’S MOST HISTORICAL STRUCTURES WORDS BY PHILIP FALCONE PHOTOS BY ZACH CORDNER
What’s below the basement door or up the attic stairs? Questions like this come up in connection with all the historically significant structures overseen by the Museum of Riverside. Established in 1924, Riverside’s municipal museum began with a donation of Indigenous artifacts from the widow of Cornelius E. Rumsey, a wealthy citrus grower and retired executive of Nabisco. As it approaches its centenary, the Museum of Riverside now oversees approximately 200,000 artifacts, and three historic sites. The range of historic structures the Museum of Riverside stewards is as diverse as the museum’s collection. An ornate 1891 Queen Anne 5,000-squarefoot mansion, an 1884 Victorian-era cottage altered only twice in the past century, and a 1912 NeoClassical-meets-Mission Revival federal post office (turned police station, turned museum) are the three main characters of this journey behind the scenes. Riverside’s earliest families who arrived in the 1870s to strike it rich during the “Second California Gold Rush” found prosperity in acres of navel orange trees. By the 1890s, Riverside was the wealthiest city in the nation per capita. As a result of such wealth, Victorian mansions sprang up along now venerable Riverside avenues, such as Magnolia and Victoria. Those who fled states with harsh weather brought their sense of style rooted in the Victorian era. One Victorian architectural style—Queen Anne—was the most popular residential design type in the United States from 1880 to 1910. The national popularity of the Queen Anne style, paired with California’s lack of an architectural identity at the time, made imposing turrets, wrap-around porches, asymmetrical facades, and ornately carved balconies and balustrades the common architectural language of booming early Riverside. In 1891, a citrus grove house—today at 8193 Magnolia Avenue—was built under the direction of Mrs. Catherine Bettner. The home’s grand entry hall, music room, parlor, dining room, library, and bedrooms were all meticulously fashioned. Early guests to the home would see only the public areas of the ground floor, while only Mrs. Bettner and her small family saw the remaining portions of the home. The expansive attic with eighteen-foot ceilings, seventeen wavy-glass windows, two unique balconies, and exposed inner workings of the home’s turret all signaled the Bettner wealth, despite never being seen by guests. This behind-the-scenes look at the attic of Heritage House is one of only a few times in its 130-year history that the public is taken up the steep eighteen-step attic staircase to one of the Museum of Riverside’s most fascinating spaces. Down from the third-story attic to the second floor are the servant’s quarters, complete with a separate servant’s staircase. A popular story surrounding this staircase is a tale of miscommunication. Bettner House architect John A. Walls of Los Angeles had designed the home without a staircase for the
HERITAGE HOUSE
Servant's staircase
servant. Common Victorian-era societal norms and homebuilding standards of the wealthy until the early 20th century barred servants from using a home’s main staircase. It was not until construction of the home neared completion that Mrs. Bettner noticed that this feature was missing, and demanded that the builder, John Hanlon, rectify the oversight by including the commonly expected servant’s staircase. A dispute over who bore the blame for the missing staircase led the builder to sue Mrs. Bettner for the cost of the construction. The case of John Hanlon versus Catherine Bettner became the first lawsuit in Riverside County. In June of 1893, the case concluded with a ruling that Mrs. Bettner and Mr. Hanlon would split the cost of adding the staircase. The result was a 22-step, steep, narrow, twisted servant’s staircase leading from the servant’s quarters to the home’s kitchen. A trimming of a Victorian-style carpet runner of gold and peach geometric patterns now adorns this infamous staircase that’s no longer in use— hidden within a dark stairway corridor. Mrs. Bettner resided in this affluent Magnolia Avenue home until her death in 1928. The house then sat empty for a decade before the McDavid family moved in and lovingly cared for the house until Mrs. McDavid’s death in the 1960s. The Riverside Museum Associates, the volunteer and fundraising arm of the Museum of Riverside, purchased the house in 1968 to create a Victorian home museum— naming it Heritage House—and later deeded it to the City of Riverside. A second former home now under the direction of the Museum of Riverside is perhaps the most unknown (and least seen) of all the museum’s historic structures—Harada House. In great contrast to Heritage House, the story of Harada House is not one of grand architecture and wealth, but of the importance of home ownership and civil rights. Constructed on Lemon Street in about 1884, the cottage is nestled in a neighborhood near the core of downtown Riverside. Purchased in 1915 by Japanese immigrant Jukichi Harada, the house was deeded in the names of Harada’s three American-born minor children—a common strategy used by immigrants in the face of the California Alien Land Law of 1913 that prevented non-American-born residents from owning property. The Haradas’ major renovation in 1916 took the modest single-story home and added a second story with four bedrooms, a bathroom, and an open front porch on both the ground level and second story. Despite the renovations, the home remained an unassuming wood frame structure. The interior of this historic home has never been safe to open to the public. After nearly 140 years on Lemon Street, the home is now a maze of internal wooden supports that structurally support the home. The modern eye looks at the aged wallpaper
Sleeping porch
HARADA HOUSE
in the kitchen and can see hidden “H” designs, along with the front porch’s support posts, which make an eight-part colonnade creating the “H” shape four times over. While not believed to be intentional design choices, these “H” designs remind of the Harada name. Upstairs, the most significant feature of the home is a note hand written on the wall by Harada’s son, Harold, before the family was forcibly removed to three different U.S. government relocation centers— today recognized as incarceration camps—in 1942. The message on the plaster—now preserved behind Plexiglas—begins, “Evacuated on May 23, 1942 Sat. 7am.” The second-floor porch was enclosed immediately after World War II to create additional living space for boarders who were welcomed into the home following their release from incarceration by returning Harada family member Sumi Harada. The 1916 exterior wooden siding remains in this now-enclosed sleeping porch. Hope is on the horizon for Harada House, as a recent $7 million dollar state allocation will ensure that the home is rehabilitated to become a house museum—similar to the operation of the Heritage House—for the first time in its history. The third historic structure within the Museum of Riverside’s oversight is the main museum at the corner of Orange Street and Mission Inn Avenue. Designed in the Neo-Classical style, this 1912 structure’s fluted columns with simplified Corinthian capitals and ornate eaves diverge from the popular Spanish Colonial Revival and Mission Revival landscape of early 20th century in Riverside. Mission Revival elements incorporated in the design include a sevenarched arcade on the façade, and an arched parapet
Harold Harada's message before being evacuated to internment camps.
projecting out of the structure’s third-floor attic. Designed by architect James K. Taylor to house the federal post office, this historic structure has seen many uses over the course of its 110 years—a post office, police station, World War II dormitory, home of the local ration board, and Riverside’s municipal museum. Portions of the building have been used by the museum since 1948, but not solely occupied b y the museum until 1965. Despite this historic structure being regularly explored by the public, several locations inside this Riverside landmark are rarely seen. The third-story
On the catwalk. RIVERSIDE MUSEUM
Bronze soap dish still intact.
attic is accessed only by a tall, narrow ladder to an attic space that hugs the clay tile roofline of the building. Visible while walking the wooden-planked catwalk in the attic is the small, arched window in the upper level of the parapet. In the center of the attic space is a covered skylight that once let natural light into the then-post office—a popular atrium-style feature for public buildings in the early 20th century. Original, marble-clad restrooms lie behind wooden swinging doors—one with an early soap dish that speaks to the attention to detail in design fixtures of historic structures. The basement of the museum is a maze of rooms and hallways conjoined by arched California brick doorways and wooden double doors—some painted bright orange from a 1970s renovation. At the end of one narrow hallway, Museum of Riverside staff recently uncovered a brick fireplace that was blocked off and hidden for decades. These historic structures tell the stories of citrus wealth in Riverside, immigrants’ struggles for justice, and the functional evolution of buildings over time. Opening the doors of the Museum of Riverside’s historic structures and uncovering sights unseen invites exploration, reflection, and encourages preservation of the Riverside of the past for the Riverside of the future.
Attic skylight
28
Cruisin’ With
Bajito Blvd. WORDS BY MANO MIRANDÉ PHOTOS BY BAJITO BLVD.
From the sounds of old school jams escaping the windows of classic cars cruising the streets of downtown Riverside—to the packed parking lots lined with rides hitting switches at Fairmount Park—Lowrider culture has become an integral part of Riverside’s identity.
Originating in Los Angeles as early as the 1940s, the Lowrider scene has since made its way from Whittier Boulevard to the local streets of the Inland Empire. Many of its early founders transplanted to the local region from the greater Los Angeles area, inevitably bringing the culture of Lowrider lifestyle with them. By creating their own local car clubs and organizing events and cruises in the area, they established their own identity, and planted the seeds from which future generations would nurture and grow into the Inland Empire Lowrider scene we see today.
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Although historically rooted in Chicano culture and with origins loosely affiliated with gangs and violence, in recent years people of various backgrounds, ethnicities, and ages, all share an unspoken bond and camaraderie through their love of custom automobiles—creating a safe, family-based environment for its members. Pouring not only their hard-earned income, but their very hearts and souls into their vehicles, Lowrider owners restore cars from old rusted-out frames with gutted engines ready for the scrap yard, and transform them into true works of beauty. They take pride in giving each car its own unique identity by customizing them with vibrant and often elaborate paint jobs, dropped suspensions, hydraulic systems, white wall tires, and lavish interiors. Car clubs are often represented by ornate logos adorned in the rear windows of their cars, and on the backs of t-shirts, jackets, and hats worn by their members. Their work is a true labor of love, and their owners come together regularly for cruises, picnics, and even competitions to showcase the countless hours of labor they’ve put into their rides—hoping to earn the recognition and respect of their peers. Like any subculture, internal documentation is critical to authentic representation of its history and integrity in order to avoid outside biases, stereotypes, and misrepresentation. An Inland Empire native who’s proudly taken up the role of documenting the local Lowrider scene, and capturing its beauty through her camera lens is Taylor Anguiano—better known as Bajito Blvd. At the young age of 27, Taylor has become a recognized and respected photographer within the local Lowrider community. Her images are a testament to the love and dedication she has for the culture, and in her words—she “lets the picture tell the story.” Taylor was born and raised in the Lowrider community through her father, an original member and current president of the Bajito car club, founded in 1978 in Rialto, California. As a child, he gave her disposable cameras to shoot cruises and car shows, and encouraged her to follow her passion and curiosity for the scene through her photography. Before she could even drive, her father gifted her a ’63 Impala that they restored together, which she used to compete in hydraulic car-hopping events. Despite being a young girl, Taylor said she “wasn’t given any slack” by the older male competitors, and was treated as an equal. This inevitably caught the attention of the well-respected Lowrider Magazine, and at only nine years old, she and her mother were featured in a special issue highlighting women in the Lowrider community. The excitement of seeing herself in the pages of the very magazine that had already impacted her early attempts at photography only encouraged her drive and passion for capturing the Lowrider scene—and allowed it to flourish and grow. As an adult, Taylor began casually posting her work to her personal Instagram account, and quickly received an influx of positive feedback and requests for more work. By February 2021, she started a separate page solely dedicated to her Lowrider photography: @bajitoblvd. Her pseudonym comes from her father’s Bajito car club, of which she’s now a member, and from her favorite movie—the 1979 Lowrider classic, Boulevard Nights. Taylor quickly gained over 10,000 followers after creating the Bajito Blvd. account, and with it, an abundance of praise for her work. Initially, she intentionally chose not to disclose her gender when she created the page—instead preferring anonymity. But through the response and feedback she received, it became evident that the majority of her followers assumed that a male was responsible for its content. It was then that she felt obligated to divulge that a woman was responsible for the images behind Bajito Blvd., and proudly became a representative for the female population within the traditionally male-dominated Lowrider community. While Taylor acknowledges that the
Lowrider scene has become more accepting of its female members in recent years, she still understands the importance of her role as a woman within the community. Taylor’s subject matter is not limited only to photographing Lowriders. She shoots models (male and female, young and old), as well as many other aspects of Chicano culture, and as she described it—she tries to “shoot with intention.” Her love for the Inland Empire and its landscape, architecture, and surroundings is found in her work, where she proudly represents her local environment—not only for its community, but for recognition from outside the area, as well. Being raised in the Inland Empire, Taylor realizes that people not familiar with the region tend to have negative misconceptions towards it—not recognizing its beauty, and other positive aspects of the local culture. It’s not coincidental that she chooses settings that are close to her heart—from Our Lady of
Cruisin’ With
Bajito Blvd.
Photographer Taylor Anguiano at Fairmount Park with her husband Luis and children Sonny and Ava. Guadalupe Church in the Eastside of Riverside where she was married, to the liquor stores in the Westside of San Bernardino where her family has roots. She hopes to break these misconceptions and give justice to her heritage and surroundings through her work. As a wife and proud mother of two children, Taylor still finds time to pursue her passion for photography, while balancing family responsibilities and work obligations. She shoots at least every other weekend, bringing her family along to cruises, picnics and events in their own custom automobiles. By immersing her family in local Lowrider culture, she carries on the tradition and example set by her father, while making her own contributions to its history and legacy. With so many accomplishments, experience, and talent at such a young age, there’s no end in sight for Bajito Blvd. But for now, she’s taking the time to appreciate and enjoy the ride.
The Riversider | February/March 2022
The Billion-dollar Navel and the Rise of Riverside’s Citrus Empire (1873-1968), and the Making of California Citrus State Historic Park
WORDS: H. VINCENT MOSES, PHD
Arlington Heights Citrus Company Groves looking northwest toward downtown Riverside with Mount Rubidoux at the upper left, c1910. Riverside Public Library Local History Room
The Riversider | February/March 2022
At the end of 1978, I was in desperate straits. My UCR History Teaching Assistantship had run out at the end of June. By the end of the year, I was flat broke and looking for an outside job to survive and complete my doctoral program. Good fortune seemed to be with me, though. In January 1979, I began an incredibly Happy New Year as the brand-new Curator of History for the Riverside Municipal Museum (now Museum of Riverside). The late Tom Patterson, dean of local historians, was at the time a member of the Museum Board. Tom took me under his wing and let me know immediately that citrus made Riverside, and that collecting and preserving the remnants of the citrus culture in and around Riverside should become my primary historical and curatorial focus. I soon learned that he’d sent me to the curatorial Promised Land. In 1979, nostalgia for the city’s lost citrus culture stood strong in the hearts and minds of locals, old and young. Old timers that had made their living in the business—either as growers, packinghouse owners, or workers—were quick to recount for me the impact of Riverside’s once famous industry on their lives, and that of their families. Citrus for them was everything. Riversiders, I also learned, were not alone in their reverie for old navel orange enterprise. By the early 20th century, citrus had come to define Southern California. Valencia orange and lemon groves festooned the Coastal Plain, from Ventura County to Orange County, south to San Diego County. Inland, immensely lucrative winter ripening and seedless navel orange groves swept from the San Gabriel Valley on the west through Redlands, Riverside, and down to Corona on the east. From the navel orange’s introduction in Riverside in 1873, until citrus’ migration to the Central Valley in the post-World War Two era, the citrus enterprise brought millions of dollars into the bank accounts of local growers, sustained a middleclass of five- and ten-acre growers, and put billions into the state economy. The industry made thousands of citrus growers wealthy and employed thousands of others in packinghouses and the groves, who raised families and built communities from the steady income. Riverside founded the California citrus enterprise and dominated it in all its aspects, from the late 19th century through the late mid-20th century.
BELOW: Grower among his groves. Riverside, c1920. Courtesy, California Historical Society RIGHT: Groves belonging to the Twogood and Castleman Ranches, now site of the historic Wood Streets housing tracts, looking toward Mount Rubidoux from Pachappa Hill, c1910. Riverside Public Library Local History Room
Eliza Tibbets and the Riverside Navel Launch an Industry
By 1895, the state and nation were abuzz with enthusiasm for a newfangled sort of orange. This new orange originated in Riverside, California, and lead the United States Department of Agriculture to call it Riverside navel. By 1895, it had made little Riverside a fantastically wealthy town. “Riverside,” declared a Board of Trade brochure, is “in the hey-day dream of her youth; the sweet maidenly blushes still mantle her cheeks, and the elasticity of vigor and health are marked in her strides toward prosperity. Upon a throne of oranges sits this young queen, flowers are her footstool, honest brave men her subjects, the cerulean blue sky her canopy, perfect climate her diadem, and health the jewel therein.” It all began in 1873, when Eliza and Luther Tibbets planted three inauspicious experimental seedless orange trees— originating in Bahia, Brazil as a mutation on a Selecta orange tree—at their homestead six miles south of the colony. Eliza obtained the trees from the United States Department of Agriculture Division of Gardens and Grounds, wanting to see if these seedless grafts would take root and produce in Riverside’s semi-arid climate. The same type of trees had failed earlier in Florida’s more tropical climate. Saunders recalled just prior to his death in 1900 that, “I had a supply of young orange stocks on hand, and as fast as I could secure buds they were inserted on these stocks. The first young plants that were sent out were sent to a Mrs. Tibbets, Riverside, CA. They prospered with her,
Managers of the Riverside Trust Company, LTD—owner of the Arlington Heights Citrus Company—the British Syndicate, c1915. Riverside Public Library Local History Room
“Riverside is one of the wealthiest towns in California and the very heart of the orange business. Around this place are 20,000 acres of oranges representing an investment of 30 million dollars. There is no class of people in the East that approach the orange growers in intelligence and
large business affairs.”—G. Harold Powell, Letters from the Orange Empire (February 1904)
and when they fruited, attention was directed to their size and fine appearance and when ripe their excellence was acknowledged, and the fruit was called the Riverside Navel.” Within two decades of the planting of Eliza Tibbets’ Parent Navel Orange Trees, the commercial citrus industry had taken root in the region, giving Southern California an engine of extraordinary power— bringing great wealth, and infusing the region with a distinctly Arcadian identity, featuring miles and miles of emerald green groves and palm-lined avenues. By 1905, Riverside orange growers and packers were shipping more than 5,000 rail carloads of fruit to eastern markets every year, reaping premium prices for their trouble. Riverside epitomized the wealth and savoir-faire of the citrus belt. She sat amidst 20,000 acres of navel orange groves, capitalizing on the landscape and romance of the industry to lure new residents and tourists. Riverside named city streets after citrus fruit, and packinghouses dotted the landscape. Those houses and groves provided jobs for thousands of migrant workers from far flung corners of the globe, including China, Japan, Korea, and Mexico, giving rise to California’s fable diversity. Statewide by 1920, Riverside orange growers— through their mammoth citrus marketing cooperative—the California Fruit Growers Exchange (CFGE) founded in 1893 in Riverside, and better known today as Sunkist Growers, had shaped the citrus enterprise into a vertically integrated cartel of great economic power and efficiency. The worldfamous marketing cooperative by 1915 represented 15,000 growers statewide. The Riverside-Arlington Heights Fruit Exchange, a district division of the CFGE (Sunkist), stood at the top of the heap among statewide district exchanges. On the economic front in 1921 alone, the California Fruit Growers Exchange sold $121,000,000 of citrus to wholesale trade. The Exchange returned this and better, year after year. The RiversideArlington Heights Fruit Exchange, local division of CFGE, for year after year led the CFGE in sales of premium oranges. The CFGE branded the sun, too. They trade marked “Sunkist” as the brand name for its topgrade citrus fruit, taking a monopoly on Old Sol, as well as California oranges and lemons. The trademark “Sunkist” became synonymous with California, and sunshine. The CFGE became a model for economic modernization in agriculture, and industrial organization of the countryside. Through the Exchange, growers invented new modes of promotional advertising on a national scale, booming California as a result. In 1916, the Exchange invented the breakfast orange juice craze with its “Drink and Orange” campaign to push sales higher. It took at least sixteen to twenty oranges to deliver a pitcher of juice. In 1920, Sunkist became the first food distributor to advertise the significance of its product as a source of the newly discovered “vitamins.” In 1926, the Exchange sponsored the first coast-to-coast radio broadcast. By 1917, the University of California Citrus Experiment Station and Graduate School of tropical Agriculture, situated three miles east of downtown Riverside, gained an international reputation solving stubborn pest problems and conducted significant research to keep the industry sound. Scientists there saved the California and worldwide citrus industry from more than one citrus pandemic over its renowned history and is working on saving citrus from the most recent pandemic—Huang Long Bing—the greening disease carried by the tiny flying Asian Citrus Psyllid. Sophisticated irrigation works like the Gage Canal—a precursor to the California Water Project of the 1960s made necessary by the area’s citrus groves—brought artesian water from miles away to sustain Riverside’s gold-bearing trees. By 1902, slightly more than a decade after its completion, the Gage Canal system was an international legend, and the model for irrigation works throughout the American West. In turn, the work of Riverside water lawyers on behalf of growers made the irrigation terms “prior appropriation” and “beneficial use” part of the vocabulary of the official California Water Doctrine. Riverside’s status as the hub of the navel orange enterprise gave rise to subsidiary and offshoot industries, too. First and foremost among them the Stebler-Parker Citrus Machinery Company, later part of Food Machinery and Chemical Corporation (FMC), manufacturers of packinghouse and grove machinery. FMC proved so successful that during World War Two, the government gave them a contract to produce The Water Buffalo Landing Craft at the Riverside Citrus machinery Division plant at 14th Street and Commerce. At the peak of wartime production, the plant employed more than 1,000 workers—hundreds of them being women. The navel orange brought British Lords and ladies to town, as well. In 1891, the Price Waterhouse Company assumed control of the Gage Canal and all its attached lands in the Arlington Heights, planted them in navel orange groves and lemons, adding 4,000 acres of cultivated citrus to the city’s existing acreage. The Brits brought with them the upper crust pursuits of the British lesser nobility, including polo, golf, tennis, and high tea. They sold their enterprise, and cultivated acres of oranges to local growers in 1928, but left an indelible mark on Riverside society and culture, as well as on growers’ grove management practices. Riverside’s navel orange wealth and exotic landscape made the area a magnate for winter tourists. The famous Glenwood Mission Inn Hotel hosted guests from around the world, as they wintered in Riverside’s mild climate. Handsome Spanish Colonial Revival civic structures and period revival homes charmed visitors. Mount Rubidoux lured them to its summit with the promise of grand vistas of orange trees, and splendid Victoria Avenue inspired travelers with its grandeur. Now a linear park and Landmark of the City of Riverside, Victoria Avenue leads to California Citrus State Historic Park—the State’s monument to the once mighty navel orange empire.
The Citrus Empire Peaks, 1945
The mammoth citrus industry peaked in Southern California in 1945, reaching a total of 350,000 acres of groves statewide. The two decades following the second world war, however, saw citrus driven out of the seven contiguous counties of the Southland,
The Riversider | February/March 2022
Postcard from 1910
pushed by completion of the freeway system, rapid suburbanization, rising land prices, higher property taxes, higher costs for water, costly aged tree replacement, acid smog, and the dreaded virus Tristeza (“sadness” in Spanish)—“Quick Decline” that laid waste to grove after grove. Even the worldrenowned UC Citrus Experiment Station (CES) was not immune to Tristeza. The vast Valencia orange and lemon acreage of Orange County went first, as housing tracts and Tristeza swept through the groves. In 1955, just after Walt Disney opened Disneyland, one local newspaper said that Orange County would soon be known as “Tract County.” Jared Farmer said, “The sell-off happened quickly,” with land syndicates across the region buying swaths of groves for housing tracts. Absentee owners stopped all pretenses of farming the groves they bought. They turned off the water, and ceased all required actions to successfully grow citrus—and that included Riverside’s absentee owned groves in Arlington Heights, and along Victoria Avenue. By the early 1960s, the newly built freeways throughout Southern California enabled drivers to commute long distances from suburban homes to urban jobs with relative ease, and at the commuter’s schedule. They fueled subdivisions further and further east of Los Angeles and Orange County. As citrus quickly receded from Orange County and surrounds, it simultaneously experienced a resurgence in the Inland Empire. Riverside and Redlands growers did not miss a beat. They had more than enough packing capacity, and the marketing prowess of Sunkist and Pure Gold ready to sell their premium fruit. Throughout the 1950s, Riverside and Redlands papers touted the continuing primary place of citrus in the local economy. By 1965, however, the Empire had fallen, sacked by housing subdivisions, market forces, land prices, smog, and disease. As suburban tracts exploded east, growers sold, subdivided, or moved their operations completely out of Southern California, north to the San Joaquin Valley. Although citrus grew in the San Joaquin for years, the arrival of the mammoth California Water Project and its California Aqueduct in the early 1960s made citrus possible there on an enormous scale, and Inland Empire growers took advantage of the opportunity.
Riverside’s California Citrus State Historic Park – Its Origin and Future
Back home, the departure of citrus from Southern California left a cultural void. The void broke hearts in Riverside. In the wake of this loss, Riverside leaders and the State of California Department of Parks and Recreation began the process of selecting an appropriate site for a state park to commemorate the massive role of citrus in making possible the rise of Southern California, and the California economy overall. I’m proud to have played a key role in the feasibility study that selected Riverside as the location of the new California Citrus State Historic Park and in the preparation of the award-winning General Plan. California State Parks never fully completed the full build out of the General Plan facilities due to lack of state funds lost in a failed bond act in 1990. Today, the Friends of California Citrus Park—led by their president, Ronald O. Loveridge—are seeking $25 million dollars of state capital improvement funds to complete the full build out of the historic facilities, and interpretive features of the park. State Senator Richard Roth of Riverside is leading the charge in the legislature to secure the funds. Your support can help make it happen. Please help the Friends of Citrus Park preserve and interpret the once and magnificent citrus empire.
If you’d like to help, please contact Susan von Zabern, Executive Director of the Friends of California Citrus Park at susanvz.citruspark@gmail.com
ABOVE: President Theodore Roosevelt (in top hat with shovel) replanting one of the two Parent Navel Orange Trees at the Grand Opening of the Glenwood Hotel, California’s Mission Inn on May 8, 1903. Master of the Inn Frank Miller gesturing with his left arm and Isabella Hardenbergh Miller to the President’s left. Museum of Riverside, A500-190.iv.E.10
