The Serenity of the Heritage House in Riverside, CA

The historical Heritage House in Riverside, CA

In 1873, a woman by the name of Eliza Tibbets got an unexpected gift from her friend, William Saunders, who happened to be a horticulturist at the United States Department of Agriculture in Washington D.C.

Knowing that Saunders liked to figure out the science of growing plants, we might presume Tibbets may have thought a nice bouquet of Camellias would be special. Those very rare flowering plants found in the far-flung lands of eastern and southern Asia would be charming to put on her windowsill at her home in Riverside, California.

When the package arrived, her friend had sent three Brazilian navel orange trees. He explained that the trees had come from Bahia, Brazil, and would grow very well in the semi-arid climate of the town situated alongside the Santa Ana River,

“I like oranges,” Tibbets may have said while donning a pair of work gloves and grabbing a shovel.

Turns out the trees did like the weather in Riverside and soon the citrus revolution in this Southern California town was in full bloom.

One of the orange trees planted by Tibbets is still thriving and can be seen at the junction of Magnolia Avenue and Arlington Avenue to this day.

By 1882, Riverside had over half of the entire population of citrus trees growing in California and people were making all kinds of moola-boola. Then, with the invention of the refrigerated railcar, oranges and other citrus could be shipped anywhere in the United States without rotting. 

By 1895, Riverside had become the richest city in the nation by way of income per capita.

As Laureen, my citrus-loving wife, and I wandered the beautiful green gardens of the Heritage House in Riverside recently, I regaled her with tales of growing up in the city of oranges.

The rear gardens including the carriage house and water tower

“I’ve heard those tales before. Many times,” she said.

I’m sure that meant that she wanted to hear more about the times my friends and I would ride our stallions through the acres of orange groves in Riverside on lazy summer afternoons looking for boyish adventures.

“I recall the time near Victoria Avenue . . .” I started.

“The tour is beginning,” Laureen interrupted. “You can finish your monologue later.”

You bet I will, I thought, as Docent Sandy invited us into the parlor of the rather large Victorian house located along Magnolia Avenue.

We were visiting the historical Heritage House which was built in 1892 wondering what it had to offer visitors in the way of Riverside history. As we stepped into the entrance, it seemed as though the residence had just been recently constructed. It is simply gorgeous - in a 19th-century sort of way.

The entrance parlor of the Heritage House

Docent Sandy was dressed in period costume and introduced herself to our small group of tourists, or as I like to refer to myself, historical researcher.

“The house is maintained in almost the exact way it would have appeared when Mrs. Catharine Bettner had lived here,” Docent Sandy said. “In fact, all the furniture, paintings, photographs, and other items in the house come from that time period, though they may not have all belonged to Mrs. Bettner.”

We later learned during the tour that all the items in the house were donated by people living in Riverside from their private collections when the Riverside Museum Associates purchased the property and converted it into a museum in 1969.

“Good time to get rid of great-grandma’s rocking chair,” a husband may have said. “Then I can get a wide lounger to take its place for game day.”

The Heritage House and all the belongings were as authentic as they could be.

Beautiful artwork abounds

“Mrs. Bettner had always wanted to live in a Queen Anne-style home and she got her wish after hiring architect John A. Walls from the firm Morgan and Walls out of Los Angeles.”

Turns out that even with detailed plans, the contractor made one terrible boo-boo as he went to turn the keys over to the new owner. He had forgotten to add the servant staircase at the rear of the house.

And we all know how that feels. Servants traipsing down the main staircase, how ghastly indeed. Laureen would have clasped her pearls in dismay at such an atrocity.

“John, my smelling salts, please,” she may say. “Jeeves just came down OUR staircase.”

The contractor sued Bettner. Bettner sued the contractor. And the judge said build the staircase and she will pay for it.

The total cost of the house, with the added servant staircase, was a staggering $13,500.00 dollars, in today's money would be nearly $400,000.  This actually is not bad considering the home boasts over 4,000 square feet of living space with an intricately carved staircase, (not the one for servants), multiple fireplaces that are inlaid with gorgeous colored tiles, and pocket sliding doors weighing four to six hundred pounds to close off rooms which glide like they are slicked with butter - and these doors are 132 years old. Try to get that warranty from Home Depot or Lowe’s.

The ceilings are designed in various patterns utilizing all sorts of native and imported wood that Docent Sandy told us but I forgot. Wait, my wife just nudged me: pine, redwood, and white oak. Finely crafted hanging lights are in each room showing nothing but elegance.

Beautifully handcrafted woodwork throughout the home

An interesting tidbit is that Catharine Bettner had moved from New York to California with her husband, James, in the late 1870s and knew about electric lights.  Even though electricity was not readily available at that time in Riverside, she had the lights installed in anticipation of retrofitting, so no changes cosmetically would have to be made to the house when electricity became available.

A very practical and forward-thinking woman.

Wandering through the residence truly pointed out how life was both similar and yet quite different at the same time, at the near turn of the 20th century.

All the comforts of an expensive home but with a few things missing, like air conditioning.

“The Heritage House is closed from June until September since the association desires to maintain the place as original as possible,” Docent Sandy said.

In other words, the museum is closed during the very hot summer months so visitors don’t faint while grasping for the banister while descending from the second floor.

“Oh my,” a woman visitor may say as she slides face-first down the stairs. “It is hot in here.”

As we entered the gracefully decorated dining room, Docent Sandy told us how Mrs. Bittner came to build her home along Magnolia Avenue.

The formal dining room

Turns out that the reason James and Catharine had left New York was due to James’s bad health. He was given less than a year to live unless he moved west to the warmer climate of California. They did and he lasted an amazing 11 years longer until passing in 1888.

When they arrived in Riverside, James jumped into the new citrus business not only planting trees but also building packing houses to prepare the citrus for delivery locally or eventually nationally.

“Back then,” Docent Sandy said. “Men had multiple jobs or careers to take care of their families. There were no pensions like today, so many men became wealthy working in this field and that field at the same time. James was a lawyer, a civil engineer, and a citrus farmer.”

I could feel Laureen’s eyes on me. I ignored them.

“So, when James died, Catharine took over his businesses and decided to build this house since she did not want to live in the house in which her beloved husband had died,” Docent Sandy told us.

Bettner was a very wise and shrewd business owner who wanted to make her late husband proud, So, under her guidance the citrus production flourished, and later on, when it was time to slow down, she turned everything over to her only surviving child Robert.

As the tour progressed we realized this was a truly special place to visit. Not only did it have a wonderful history but showed the love and respect the citizens had for this one-time small town in the West.

One of many fireplaces

It was their home and they took pride in it.

With the thought of preserving history, the Riverside Museum Associates wanted the residence designated on the National Register of Historic Places, which it received on February 28, 1973. 

For further information: https://riversideca.gov/museum/

California Citrus State Historic Park

 “You know,” Laureen said, “It would be nice to have some fresh orange juice for breakfast.”

I nodded. “And I know just the place.”

In a little over an hour, we were at the California Citrus State Historic Park, in Riverside.

One of the paths through a citrus grove at the park

“Stater Brothers would have worked; it was closer to home,” my thoughtful spouse remarked.

“Yes, but you wanted fresh oranges and here we are,” I replied.

Hundreds and hundreds of green-leafed trees budding with voluptuous oranges beckoned us to pick them. We would have our fill with the vitamin C fruits. 

The Ranger at the small toll gate smiled and told us we could not use drones over the vast fields of orange trees.

“No flying drones, got it,” I replied.

“Also, you can not pick any of the oranges in the park.”

“Isn’t this an orange park with a lot of oranges?” I asked.

“It is a state historical park, no picking of the fruit,” she said.

“Are the oranges historical?”

Both Laureen and the Ranger rolled their eyes at me. 

An orange tree park where a visitor can not imbibe on such a delicious snack as an orange seemed odd to me.

‘Welcome to San Onofre State Beach, where no swimming, boating, or fishing is allowed.’ 

‘Welcome to Heart Bar State Park, where no hiking or camping is allowed.’

Research indicated that under California Code Regulations, Title 14 (a) – no person shall willfully or negligently pick, dig up, cut, mutilate, destroy, injure, or do any other bad stuff to any tree, plant, or portion of. . . 

Okay, so we would not pick any fruit. It was still a beautiful location to spend an early morning walking through the groves and just taking in nature at its best.

I grew up in Riverside. Did not leave until my third decade on this revolving ball we call Earth. Return visits were many to visit family, but those visits became less and less frequent as family became smaller through the years.

Having spent a lot of time riding horses through the vastness of orange tree tracts with my school friend, Michael, this visit brought back great memories. Galloping here and there up and down Victoria Avenue throwing clods of dirt into the air was a lot of fun. Unless an errant orange tree branch would remove me from the saddle, which took the fun away rather quickly.

John R Beyer enjoying a respite at the citrus park

Oranges were a citrus gold rush for the early settlers in Riverside. In fact, it is this city beside the Santa Ana River which started the citrus bonanza in the state of California. 

In 1871, Eliza Tibbets had received three Brazilian navel orange trees from a friend of hers, William Saunders. Turned out, Saunders worked for the United States Department of Agriculture in Washington D.C., and he believed the citrus would grow well in the semi-arid climate for which Riverside is known.

His assumption was correct, and the trees took off like a wildfire. No, that would have destroyed them. Instead, the Brazilian orange trees grew very well and very rapidly.

It was rumored that Saunders was so thrilled, that he danced the Bumba Meu Boi while sipping on a Caipirinha at the same time.

Of the original three trees, two survived and were transplanted from Tibbet’s property to a safer location at Sam McCoy’s, who would watch over them a bit more carefully. A cow stomped on one of the three trees killing it while under Tibbet’s care.

Talk about freshly squeezed.

The two remaining survivors of the infamous cow stampede were transplanted again, one at the Mission Inn and the other at the intersection of Magnolia and Arlington avenues.

President Theodore Roosevelt paid homage to the tree at the Mission Inn during a visit to Riverside in 1903. It is rumored he plucked a big fat juicy orange and ate it right there on the flagstone patio.

That tree died in 1922, but the last of the three trees is still growing strong at the intersection of Magnolia and Arlington. Though there is a large fence around it to keep people from being tempted to eat the oranges which grow in bushels upon its branches.

Oranges were such a huge financial success that by 1882, of the more than a half million citrus trees in the state of California, half were in Riverside. With the vast improvement in refrigerated railroad cars during the 1880s, growers had the chance to transport the citrus eastward, and Riverside became the richest city, per capita, in the United States by 1895.

Within the visitor center at the California Citrus State Historic Park is a large museum which has a plethora of information from the beginning to the current day dealing with this business of citrus. There are models of packing houses, wooden crates, photographs of the original complexes, photographs of people who worked the groves – along with their personal stories, a detailed history of the orange industry, farm implements, and much more for the curious citrus history visitor.

The visitor center at the California Citrus State Historic Park

Just some of the farming equipment on display

One of a few pagodas in the park

Venue center at the California Citrus State Historic Park

Some of the history is not too kind for some of the folks residing and working in the area during the boom of the citrus industry. 

Before there was a Riverside County, the lands were the homes to the Native American tribes, Serrano, Luiseno, Cahuilla, Cupeno, and others. When the citrus industry started, many of these natives worked for the growers but due to government policies and racial prejudices the workforce declined causing harsh living conditions for the natives. In 1903, with the Sherman Indian Institute coming into existence in Riverside, a new work program allowed students to return working for the growers, which they did as late as the 1930s. Though the students were working, they were working in poor conditions and for very little pay. What seemed like a good idea at the time only provided cheap labor for a large money-making industry.

Chinese immigrants were employed when the Native American workforce dwindled, and by 1885 nearly eighty percent of the workers were Chinese. The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 finally reached its ugly head in the Riverside area and suddenly the Chinese workers were no longer wanted. In came the Japanese immigrants who, by 1900, made up most of all workers in the groves. But again, local resentment of the Asian immigrants made their numbers fall to a low in 1920, when Hispanic immigrants moved in and took up the slack of workers.

Like all history, there is good and there is bad – thus there is a need to study it and the museum does a wonderful service explaining the importance and how dependent the industry was on all the various peoples who built such an agricultural phenomenon. 

Some of the stories a visitor will learn are heart breaking but at the same time those stories express tales of such strong-willed individuals. These folks toiled day in and day out to make America what it is today. They were incredible people.

It is always worth remembering and appreciating their personal sacrifices.

With well over two hundred acres of land to wander over, there is a lot to see, and it is not just oranges that grow within the park grounds. Nope, there are grapefruit, lemons, and avocados growing everywhere. And there are special types of citrus and other plants along the exterior walking paths which would pique the interest of any serious botanist.

There are also some plants with rather unusual and intriguing names: the Australian Finger Lime, the Sticky Monkey Flower, the Mulefat, the Royal Beard Tongue, and many more to marvel at during a leisurely stroll. Though, I’m not sure any should be touched, no matter what the California laws dictate about doing so, but with names like those, who knows what could happen.

I do recall Harry Potter and the rather poisonous Pomona Sprout’s Garden. Don’t want to be accidently turned into a newt, now do we?

An original growers abode

Laureen and I walked around enjoying the smell of citrus in the air. A long walk to a high hilled view of the park and the entire city of Riverside, with the San Gabriel Mountains to the north. We sat beneath beautiful pagodas. Marveled at how great it would be as a wedding venue or corporate event. Wandered through groves of citrus. The entire experience was relaxing.

Beautiful views of the mountains from the park

We ended at the Gage canal, named after Matthew Gage, who in 1885 started construction on a twelve-mile water canal bringing water to the groves which was completed in 1889.

A section of the Gage Canal

My friend, Michael started working at the Gage Canal Company while in high school. He climbed the corporate ladder, finally becoming a big mucky muck. I remember accompanying him, many times on horseback, riding through the groves when he did that or did this along the miles of canal – it was so quiet and serene out there among the trees. And I remember the smell of the smudge pots during cold winter nights.

I have told Laureen and my children of those memories. They smile and nod their heads – they are good like that. But when I visited the California Citrus State Historic Park, personal memories of my childhood in Riverside flooded back – and it was nice.

For further information - https://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=649