Riverside, California, was founded in 1870, and named for its location beside the Santa Ana River. It became the county seat when Riverside County, California, was established in 1893.
Precolonial period Prior to the colonization of Mexico and Alta California by Spain, the land that would become Riverside, California, was frequented by various Native American people. No permanent settlements are known to have existed, but occasional villages close to the river were documented by later explorers. Artifacts found at White Sulphur Springs, as well as grain grinding holes in rocks south of Mount Rubidoux, provide evidence of the Native American activity.
Spanish period
On March 20, 1774, Juan Bautista De Anza, leading an exploratory expedition to find a good land route from southern Mexico to Alta California, reached the area today known as Riverside. He, and others in his contingent, described the area as a beautiful place fragrant with rosemary and other herbs, and having rich grasslands for their horses and cattle to graze. He named the area Valle de Paraiso, or Valley of Paradise. This was the first official record made of what was to become the city of Riverside.Why did Captain Juan Bautista de Anza return to Riverside, California?. Riverside Chamber of Commerce, 1975. Page 3.
De Anza led a second expedition through the area on December 31, 1775. This expedition was a colonizing expedition headed for Monterey. They spent New Year's Eve on the banks of the Santa Ana River, and crossed the river the following day.
The routes taken by the two expeditions are believed to have followed a course from somewhere near Lake Perris, in current-day Moreno Valley, down the Box Springs grade near the 60/215 Highway interchange, and across Riverside in the direction of the Martha McLean – Anza Narrows park. A marker in the park was dedicated to recognize the point where the group crossed the Santa Ana River. To commemorate De Anza's expeditions, the city of Riverside, through private donations and a federal grant from the Works Progress Administration, began work on a 20-foot statue of De Anza in 1939.Baggs, Terry. Making Riverside Work: The Benefits of the WPA. Journal of the Riverside Historical Society, Number Three, February 1999. The dedication took place in May, 1942, at the corner of Market and 14th streets.Patterson, Tom. Landmarks of Riverside, and the Stories Behind Them. The Press Enterprise Company, Riverside, CA, 1964. Pages 174–175.
American period The California Silk Center Association was established in November, 1869, and included some of the land that would later become Riverside. The Association dissolved in April, 1870, when Louis Prevost, the only member of the Association knowledgeable on silk farming, died unexpectedly. On September 12, 1870, the Southern California Colony Association of Jurupa was formed, and on September 14 they purchased much of the Silk Association's land and water rights. Initially the new colony was referred to as Jurupa, for the name of the original Rancho that occupied the area, but the Colony Association formally adopted the name Riverside on December 18, 1870.Gunther, pp 506-507.
Citrus history
In 1873 Eliza Tibbets convinced William Saunders, Superintendent of the fledgling Bureau of Agriculture, to make her a test grower for his new seedless oranges from Bahia, Brazil.William Saunders' journal, unpub., quoted in USDA, The Navel Orange of Bahia, Bull. No. 445 (Washington, DC: GPO), 5–6.USDA, Annual Report of the Commissioner of Agriculture, 64. By planting and nurturing the orange trees that Saunders sent her, Tibbets revolutionized the citrus industry.Bailey, 1595. Introduction of these oranges, later called the Washington Navel Orange, proved to be the most successful experiment of Saunders' tenure, and one of the outstanding events in the economic and social development of California. For the next 60 years and more, a great industry was built up from the two small trees planted in Riverside by Eliza Tibbets.
The citrus industry in California had begun before Tibbets' introduction of the Washington navel orange. However, there was no outstanding early and midseason variety of sweet orange generally adapted to the climate. Extant citrus was mostly seedling trees grown from seeds obtained locally or from the Spanish missions. Growers experimented, but there was a lack of standardization in quality.
Eliza Tibbets planted the two trees in her garden in 1873. It is widely accepted that she took care of the two remaining trees using dishwater to keep them alive because the Tibbets lot was not connected to canal water.Roistacher, PGCGN, 60.Klotz, "Eliza Tibbets," 17. Agriculture officials attribute the success of the two trees that did flourish to Eliza Tibbets' care. The first fruits borne by these trees were produced in the season of 1875–76.Shamel, 1915, 3. When the Washington navel orange was publicly displayed at a fair in 1879, the valuable commercial characteristics of the fruit, including their quality, shape, size, color, texture, and seedlessness, were immediately recognized.USDA, Bud Selection, 2USDA, 1937 yearbook Tibbets' orange was also ideally suited to Riverside's semiarid weather, and its thick skin enabled it to be packed and shipped.Shamel & Pomeroy, Washington Navel Orange, 9. The contrast between this new fruit and that of seedling trees was so striking that most new grove plantings were of Washington navel oranges.Roistacher, PGCGNShamel & Pomeroy, The Washington Navel Orange, 8. Tibbets sold budwood from her trees to local nurserymen, which led to extensive plantings of nursery trees cloned from hers
Legacy of introduction Tibbets' success with the navel orange had led to a rapid increase in citrus planting,Dumke, Boom, 14. and the citrus planted was predominantly the Washington navel orange. The commercial success of these early orchards soon led to a widespread interest in this variety, so that by 1900 it was the most extensively grown citrus fruit in California.USDA, A. D. SHAMEL, C. S. POMEROY, and R. E. CARYL, Bud selection in the Washington navel orange progeny tests of limb variations. Washington, U.S. Dept. of Agriculture;1929USDA Yearbook 1937.
The growth that the Washington Navel Orange (WNO) produced in Riverside spread throughout the state, driving the state and even the national economy. Citrus assumed a major place in California's economy.Gerald D. Nash, State Government and Economic Policy: A History of Administrative Policies in California 1849–1933 (New York: Arno Press, 1979 ©1964) 140State Board, 13. By 1917 WNO culture was a $30 million per year industry in California.Dorsett & Shamel, 1917. By 1933 the WNO industry in CA had grown to an industry with an annual income of $67 million.Cal Statutes. From one million boxes of oranges in 1887 to more than 65.5 million boxes of oranges, lemons, and grapefruit in 1944, despite the depression years of the 1930s, the California citrus industry experienced nothing short of explosive growth.
The success of Tibbets' orange inspired irrigation projects which converted more desert to orange groves.State Board, 14 The size, scale, and ingenuity of the irrigation structures in Riverside and surrounding area are considered one of the agricultural marvels of the age.Nash, "Economic Growth," 319 citing Nash, State Government, By 1893 Riverside was the wealthiest city per capita in the United States. Money poured into California. Tibbets' orange led to an estimated $100 million of direct and indirect investment in citrus industry over the next 25 years.. But see: Michael A. Lane "Scientific Work of Government," Making of America Vol VII, ed. Robert Marion La Follette. Robert Marion La Follette, Charles Higgins, William Matthews Handy (Chicago,: Making of America, 1906.) But Eliza Tibbets' orange did not merely feed the wealth and growth of existing towns; new cities and towns popped up whose birth, existence, and future depended upon the condition of the orange market.State Board, 13–14. In 1886 alone new citrus towns were laid out in Rialto, Fontana, Bloomington, Redlands, Terracina, Mound City (Loma Linda), Guasti and South Riverside, (Corona). Irrigated communities like Etiwanda, Redlands, Ontario and many others were launched.Tom Patterson, "The Tibbets, the Navel Orange, and the Dishpan," in Landmarks of Riverside and the Stories Behind Them (Riverside, CA: Press-Enterprise Co., 1964) 31.
The rapidly expanding citrus industry also stimulated the capital market for real estate. As the industry grew, land which had been regarded as worthless dramatically increased value. Not only did orange culture feed the land boom of the 1880s in Southern California; it allowed Riverside to survive when the land boom collapsed in 1888. (See also: Panic of 1893.) The success of Tibbets' orange stimulated related industries. Citrus built the foundations of the region's economic modernization before the great flood of defense funds began in World War II. Tibbets' introduction of the Washington navel orange was largely responsible for the fruit packing houses, inventions in boxing machines, fruit wraps and the iced railroad car.
By the mid-1880s, five packing houses sprang up in Riverside. Many methods developed in the course of the growth of this industry, which had a wide application, to other fruit growing industries as well to citrus. The study and efforts of pioneers in the development of the California citrus industry led to the invention of fumigation, of orchard heaters, and of many other methods of culture. In 1897–1898, Benjamin and Harrison Wright invented and patented a mechanized orange washer. By the end of 1898, two-thirds of Riverside's packinghouses were using the machines. At the turn of the century, Stebler and Parker began manufacturing citrus packing machinery in Riverside independent of each other. The companies, which merged in 1922, became the California Iron Works, and later still Food Machinery Corporation (today's FMC Corp.). The Santa Fe Railroad opened a direct line to Riverside in 1886, allowing direct shipment to the east. Eight years later, the first refrigerated rail cars shipped oranges from Riverside to the east on the Santa Fe Railroad.
Another illustration of the results of the success of the citrus industry in California was the organization of the growers into an exchange for the co-operative handling of their crop and its distribution. California Fruit Growers Exchange, a cooperative marketing association made up of local growers, was founded in 1893; it is now known as Sunkist Growers, Incorporated.
A key feature of the growth of the Washington Navel orange industry was a scientific approach to improvement. Study of propagation culture handling, transportation and other phases of producing distributing and marketing the crop was largely responsible for advancements used not only with citrus but also in other fruit industries. In 1893, cyanide gas was used to fight citrus scale. A U. S. Department of Agriculture scientist helped growers to harness nature's biological wrath during the "decay crisis" of 1905–1907, when alarming proportions of fruit spoiled in transit, and wed the industry to the scientific expertise of the USDA.