How Riverside Got its Name

It is not hard to understand how Riverside, California got its name.  Basically, it translates as a place or settlement beside a river, the Santa Ana River to be exact in this case, which flows from the San Bernardino Mountains through the western part of the County down to the Pacific Ocean.
 
 
Native American artifacts found around Mt. Rubidoux and other sites around the Riverside area indicate that the land was settled for hundreds, perhaps thousands of years, by local tribes, prior to the area being named Riverside. 
 
 
When Juan Bautista de Anza’s Spanish expeditionary forces came through the Riverside area in the mid 1770s they made the first known official records of the area, referring to it as “Valle de Paraiso” or “Valley of Paradise” as they camped along the Santa Ana River near the edge of what is now considered Riverside.  At the time much of the present day urban area was grasslands and pasture, ideal for horses and livestock. 
 
 
John North of Northfield, Minnesota fame (think Jesse James Gang) is generally credited with the first non-native settlement of Riverside, bringing a small colony of settlers to the area in the early 1870’s.  A short time later, Eliza Tibbets, a local resident, began a naval orange tree experiment with the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture that would put Riverside on the map.  By 1895, with the establishment of the citrus industry well under way from the naval orange experiment, Riverside emerged as the richest city per capita in the country.  Over a quarter of a million citrus trees were growing in Riverside at that time, over half of what was being grown in the entire state of California.  One of the three original naval orange trees is still thriving in the City, at the corner of Magnolia and Arlington Streets.  One was replanted on the historic Mission Inn grounds by President Theodore Roosevelt at the Inn’s Grand opening, and the third was reportedly trampled by a cow the first year of its existence on the Tibbet’s farm.  The site is a designated State of California Historic site. 
 
 
In 1893 portions of San Bernardino and San Diego counties were realigned to carve out a new County, Riverside, with the City of Riverside chosen as the County Seat by an overwhelming majority of voters.  And the rest, as they say, is history.
 
 
To read more about the history of the City of Riverside or Riverside County check out the 979 section of your public library in person or online, especially those located in Riverside County.
 
 
I received a number of inquiries about the name “California” after the “California English” blog entry a few weeks ago so we’ll explore that next time.
 
 
Sherry