City of Riverside history

The first land grant in what is now Riverside County, Rancho Jurupa, was given to Juan Bandini in 1838.

The university traces its origins to the private College of California, founded in 1855 in Oakland.

Founded in 1870 by John North and a group of Easterners who wished to establish a colony dedicated to furthering education and culture, Riverside was built on land that was once a Spanish rancho.

The first orange trees were planted in 1871, but the citrus industry in Riverside began two years later when Eliza Tibbets received two Brazilian navel orange trees sent to her by a friend at the Department of Agriculture in Washington.

Renamed Riverside, it developed as a citrus town; the state’s first Washington navel-orange trees, propagated from Brazilian cuttings, were cultivated there in 1873.

In 1874, civil engineer C.C. Miller arrived in Riverside, began work on a water system, and with his family, began a small boarding house in the center of town.

In 1880, his son Frank Augustus Miller, bought the property and gradually improved and enlarged it.

By 1882, there were more more than half a million citrus trees in California, almost half of which were in Riverside.

Although the county marks its political beginnings in 1893, the land was occupied long before Europeans and their descendants entered the areas by several Native American groups including the Serranos, the Luisenos, the Cupenos, the Chemehuevi, and the Cahuillas.

The development of refrigerated railroad cars and innovative irrigation systems established Riverside as the state's wealthiest city per capita by 1895.

Working with prominent architect Arthur Benton, financed by railroad baron Henry Huntington, and inspired by the growing popularity of California Mission tourism and Mission Revival architecture, Miller opened the first wing of the current Mission Inn building in 1903.

The San Diego campus, located at La Jolla, was founded as a marine station and became part of the university in 1912.

In 1920, Ernest Louis Yeager began the E. L. Yeager Construction Company, Inc., which, with the assistance of his three sons, completed over a half century of master construction projects.

Downtown Riverside’s historic Fox Performing Arts Center is a 1929 Spanish Colonial Revival theater that held the first public screening of Gone with the Wind.

By 1931, the Mission Inn comprised four wings in a labyrinth of gardens, towers, arches, and winding stairways that encompassed an entire city block.

Incorporated June 21, 1951, Riverside is formally one of the area's youngest communities.

The Riverside campus (founded 1954) of the University of California has a citrus experiment station.

The campuses at Santa Cruz and Irvine were both founded in 1965.

Fearful that the hotel would be permanently shuttered and its interior collections destroyed, in 1969 a group of concerned citizens formed the Friends of the Mission Inn, a volunteer organization dedicated to promoting hotel business and safeguarding the historic collections.

As the hotel’s financial woes persisted, the City of Riverside’s Redevelopment Agency purchased the Mission Inn in 1976.

In 1977, thanks to the efforts of local advocates and government officials, the Mission Inn was designated a National Historic Landmark by the federal government, officially marking the Inn as a site of national historic importance.

After keeping the hotel afloat for nearly nine years, the city sold the hotel to a Wisconsin- based private development firm, which closed the Inn in June 1985 to begin what would become a seven-year $50 million renovation project.

With restorations nearly complete in December 1988, the hotel was once again plagued by bankruptcy and languished for three years without a buyer.

By 1992, the County was home to over 1.3 million residents, more than the entire population of 13 states, among them Maine, Nevada, Hawaii and New Hampshire.

In 2000 the system helped create the California Institutes for Science and Innovation, which has facilities at various campuses dedicated to technology research.

In 2001, the City of Riverside celebrated its 50th anniversary.

In 2004 Partners for Livable Communities recognized Riverside as one of America's "Most Livable Communities" in the mid-sized city category.

The Countywide Oversight Board was formed in 2018, as a result of state legislation that combined all successor agencies by county.