USA > California > Riverside County > History of San Bernardino and Riverside counties, Volume I > Part 49
USA > California > San Bernardino County > History of San Bernardino and Riverside counties, Volume I > Part 49
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None of the first settlers made much money, the experiment was new and much of the planting of an earlier date had to be dug up and burned and others substituted in its place and the best part of their lives was spent in experimenting and some got discouraged by repeated failures. Riverside, however, has far exceeded the expectations of it founders. Judge North wanted a settlement large enough for 10,000 settlers. Fifty years after, the City of Riverside has a population of nearly 25,000 and the County of 60,000 and the "Schools, Churches, Library" and so on that his prophetic vision foresaw have exceeded the expectations of the most sanguine.
The 100 families, however, that he looked on as a basis for a success- ful beginning, did not come at first. Not more than a half dozen families responded to his first appeal, but they came gradually after. Not every day can a man with a family "pull up stakes" as the saying is and spend a small fortune to found a new home in a strange land and in untride and unproven lines of new business altogether.
Dr. Greves, as one of the active co-laborers with Judge North, issued quite an alluring circular from Marshall, Michigan, with a view of get- ting up an excursion from Chicago to San Francisco planned for the month of May. About one hundred people took advantage of the excur- sion. At that time railway rates were very high and the railroads had been running, for a year or so, and the time was slow. The regular rate at that time was $236.00 from Chicago to San Francisco and return and from San Francisco to Los Angeles was a good two days by steamer with almost two days more of long dusty stage riding over a rough desert road to Riverside via San Bernardino. So it is not to be wondered at that few responded to the original call. To many it might take years of preparation before old ties could be broken, besides lots of money. A circular letter issued by Judge North on September 10, 1873, three years after the founding of the colony is interesting as showing the growth of the colony and also the high views of the future he held from the first.
"THE RIVERSIDE COLONY"
"The success of the Riverside Colony has long since been recognized. The practicability of establishing a colony of eastern people in South- ern California is no longer doubted. Within a litle more than two years from the time when we first brought water upon our lands, we have
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about 300 inhabitants, 3,000 acres under cultivation, 10,000 shade and ornamental trees, 10,000 fruit trees in orchard, and 200,000 in nursery.
"We are already receiving fruit from our trees and vines, grapes, limes, figs, apples, peaches, apricots, pomegranates, and strawberries are raised the present season and the time is near when our orange and lemon groves will be in bearing. The wonderful growth of our trees, vines and flowers, has far surpassed our expectations.
"Riverside has a postoffice, hotel, store, drug store, meat market, mechanic shops, school house, public library and church.
"Families coming from the East will find the comforts and conveni- ences of older towns, with the additional advantages of climate and pro- ductions peculiar to this portion of California.
"The cost of living is considerably less than at the East.
"The best of orange land lying conveniently for irrigation within one mile of (and some of it adjoining) the town is now offered at from twenty-five dollars to seventy-five dollars per acre according to location and quality of surface.
"We aim to make our colony especially desirable for families of intel- ligent, cultivated people. We have in view intellectual and moral culture as well as the cultivation of the soil. Nearly all the religious denomina- tions are represented here and a church lot is donated to each when they wish to build.
"All liberal minded and charitable people of every denomination are cordially invited to join us in this good work. * * *
"We have need of a large hotel for the accommodation of the increas- ing numbers who wish to avail themselves of the healthful influences of our superior climate, so free from fogs and damp winds."
"We have the strong assurances that the Texas Pacific Railroad will connect us with San Francisco and the East within two years."
J. W. NORTH,
Riverside, September 10, 1873 President and General Agent,
Southern California Colony Association.
In the absence of 100 families who could furnish $1,000 each, the question of how to get money to carry out the plans of the Colony was a pressing one. This was something new in the history of the United States-a colony that would have to spend what in those times and condi- tions represented an enormous sum of money and that would have to wait for years for any returns from the investment, and which to the ideas of many people seemed at best problematical. Irrigation was a necessity for successful cultivation of the soil in Southern California and to try to make a successful home on a dry mesa or high table land with water anywhere from fifty to one hundred feet from the surface in what was then an almost torrid climate, was out of the question. That idea was not for a minute entertained.
Fortunately C. N. Felton, a wealthy and old San Francisco Califor- nian, and a relative of Mrs. North was quite interested in the experi- ment and Judge North, backed by his capital was enabled to go ahead building the first canal. Surveys were made, roads laid out and the lands bought by the company, incorporated as the Southern California Colony Association, laid out in small tracts of ten acres believed to be suitable for homes and large enough when planted to fruits adapted to the climate to furnish a good living for a family. The town was laid off one mile square in two and a half acre blocks, ten lots to each block. Streets were laid off sixty feet wide with four business streets one hundred feet wide running the whole length of the mile. These streets were Seventh and Eighth, Market and Main. After the old Spanish fashion a plaza
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or square was formed between Seventh and Eighth, Main and Market. This with the four wide streets included would have given something like five or more acres for ornamental purposes in days to come, but it was abandoned in after years and in place of it, there was given what is now know as the A. S. White Park, a gem in a beautiful setting of which a further account will be given when the writeup of our pub- lice parks is given.
On the site of the White Park was originally a good sized pond of water in which was collected much of the waste water from irrigation and from flood water in time of rains. There was no special outlet for it and it lay there grown up to tules and a breeding place for mosquitos and a general eyesore. It was, however, a favorite place for duck shoot- ing for our local nimrods. Finally there came to Riverside, Dr. Clark Whittier, a wealthy physician from the east, who made a proposal to S. C. Evans, Sr., to fill up the pond, which occupied about two, two and a half acre block. for half the land and build a sanatorium on the corner of Market and Seventh, the result of which was the Holyrood Hotel which has since had some additions and improvements by David Coch- rane an enthusiastic Scotchman. The writer of this had the honor of having the contract to fill up and level the pond and doing away with an unsightly nuisance. So far as the sanatorium is concerned it never materialized so that it could be seen to any extent.
The canal was finished as far as the town site by June, 1871, but not on as perfect a grade as it had today. Everything was new in that line of work at that time, and crossing arroyas, except where wooden flumes were put in, earth dams were put in, making large ponds.
Again in crossing low spots, the line of the canal was run on a contour line, thereby making the canal rather crooked in places. In order to get the canal to cover the upper part of the mile square laid off for the town, the level had to be changed somewhat to get the whole of it, making a very sluggish run of water for some distance up. This was changed gradually by fluming and fills which in time was a great improvement in every way. The knowledge gained by experience was a very great help when the Gage and other canals were built, for it was found better and more economical to run on straight lines as far as possible by cutting and filling. Fifty-five thousand dollars were spent in this way in our pioneer experiment.
The first year, that is 1871, there was but little done for lack of water. Dr. Shugart and others brought a few trees and ornamental plants and shrubs from Los Angeles and kept them alive by hauling water from Spring Brook, about one mile away and a steep hill to climb besides. All of the water for domestic and other purposes had to come in the same way for nine months. Fortunately this was in the cooler months of the vear. So not much could be done in this way, but enough was done to show remarkable growths from an eastern standpoint and to prove the desirable qualities of our climate.
A good deal of ridicule was wasted and jeering indulged in by people on the outside and even as far as Los Angeles, but on the whole much encouragement, help and advice was given by progressive and intelli- ยท gent people from both places. The completion of the canal to the town site and shortly after across the Arroya Terquisquite to the company's lands below and the government lands still further down, put new life in the settlement and high hopes in the settlers which found expression in the spring of 1872, when a good start was made by everyone in the settlement which on the writer's first visit in April showed enough of successful growth to convince not only himself, but the settlers that the future of Riverside was full of promise.
POSTOFFICE, RIVERSIDE
CHAPTER XI
THE FIRST DECADE OF RIVERSIDE
The question has often been asked as to what the early settlers ever intended or looked for? The idea of going into a new country, a strange country, where everything was different from what they had been used to. To go to a country that heretofore was out of the world and until the Central and Union Pacific Railroads were completed took a month or six weeks to get to, and to a part of California that was 500 miles from a railway except an insignificant line twenty miles long from Wilming- ton to Los Angeles, where there were Indians and Mexicans and other outlandish people, and to a land that was a desert and barren and almost rainless, with a torrid climate and a burning sun in the summer season. And furthermore to fix on a colony and site high and dry and beyond water, where water would have to be run up hill, almost, to get it on the land, and until you got water on the land you would at the best have to live in a shanty for months without water in the hot sun without vege- tation, surely such people must be crazy to venture everything on an untried experiment !
Such are a few of the arguments adduced and difficulties encountered by the first settlers. But they had what all the world's reformers and pioneers had to have, namely, faith and vision. Stories had reached them that in far away California they had a beautiful and a healthful climate where all the productions of the temperate and semi-tropic zones could be grown, where the orange and the fig grew to perfection, where raisins could be made surpassing anything grown in Europe and where straw- berries could be found all the year round-where the loveliest flowers were ever blooming and roses could be picked at New Year's day. In a word where the most lively imagination of the Easterner could be sur- passed by the reality. This was the story at that early day. What is now a commonplace matter was at that time a "nine days' wonder." Time has amply proven that the expectations of the earliest settlers have been surpassed and many that came here in the last stages of disease have been restored to health and the enjoyment of many years of happy and useful life.
Many of the settlers bought two and a half acre blocks in town, on which they built their homes in addition to buying five or ten acres outside of the town limits. Some difficulties were encountered at first and for several years from Spanish stock, which ran at large, but a no- fence law enacted by the Legislature put a stop to that. For several seasons swarms of grasshoppers did some damage by eating up the green foliage of the trees and vines.
Water was cheap in the early days. Four cents an inch miners' measurement was the first price for twenty-four hours' run or 21/2 cents per inch for day water and 11/2 cents per inch for a night run. Many of the settlers took a continuous stream of 5 inches by the year, which cost $20 per year.
The Southern California Colony Association being the first corpora- tion to build a canal and bring water on to lands and having no precedent nor law to guide them, made no regulations of any moment in regard to the use or spread of water. There was plenty of water, everyone got water, and as much of it as he wanted and when he wanted it. As time went on and expenses of delivery of water began to increase and new
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settlers to come in, the question arose as to the right of the landowner to water and inquiry developed the fact that the settler had none. In all of the previous irrigating enterprises the irrigators joined together, built their ditches and took the water and distributed it equitably, each taking the whole water in his turn. But this was a serious case and when the history of the canals comes up it will be seen how in this as in a great many other matters Riverside took the initiative and settled the matter completely and satisfactorily. Riverside, being the first, has been the pioneer in almost everything connected with colony work.
At that time there were no dairymen or milkmen delivering milk to customers, so most of the settlers kept a cow, selling milk to their next door neighbor where he was not so fortunate. In this way everyone was supplied-milk costing 5 cents per quart.
The question of feed for animals was the first concern. Hay could be had in limited quantity from the few settlers in the river bottom lands until it could be got of home growth. Alfalfa was found to be a success and this was a great boon to the first settlers when it was found that it could be cut six or seven times a year with a good cutting each time. The grocery stores were general stores, carrying everything, more like a de- partment store in variety, but this was before the age of canned goods and foods, put up in a variety of ways to tempt the buyer. Flour and bacon, tea and sugar were the staples without any tempting display of fruits and vegetables as we see today, nor the shelves groaning under the heavy loads of canned goods of everything that could be thought of, meats, vegetables and fruit. The family cow, the few chickens and the vegetable garden was sufficient for all purposes while fruit of all varieties was coming on.
As for drygoods and all the nic-nacs of dress, the Spanish and Indian trade was mainly what was catered to and the pioneer settler had an excellent opportunity to wear out some of the finery brought from the East. Besides what was the use of sighing after the unattainable, when if you had it, you could not go anywhere, except to the near neighbors or maybe to the little church on Sunday to which you could walk if you were near enough or ride in the lumber wagon if at a greater distance. Horseback riding was much in favor to those who were able and could afford a horse.
The simple fare, the scanty apparel and the active life in the open air were very conducive to health and happiness and as to wealth, that was one of the "castles" in the domain of the future.
Riverside grew slowly at first and until the objects for which it was founded were seen to be possible of accomplishment. All fruits that had matured were of fine quality. Climate at that early day was a never- ending topic for discussion and settlers were writing back East telling of its beauties and health-giving qualities. A small weekly newspaper was started in November, 1875, called "The Riverside News." It never was very much of a newspaper, but it put the people more in touch with one another and detailed the local happenings and was a welcome guest. It was very far from the modern newspaper with its linotype machines driven by electricity. Robert Hornbeck, one of the early settlers of Riverside, and who set some of the type for the first number, says "All of the reading matter contained in it could have been set by the modern machine in four hours." So it was not a very great affair. It came unexpectedly and maintained a sort of checkered existence for a year or two with a circulation of about 300-subscription price, $3-and sus- pended publication in 1878. It was a comfort to have even a paper like that as a forerunner of what was to come.
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People came in slowly, money was scarce and everything was dull, hut everyone was hopeful, waiting for the good times ahead.
South of and adjoining the government lands was a large tract of land called the Hartshorn tract of 8,000 acres that lay between the Jurupa Ranch and the "Rancho Sobrante de San Jacinto." This tract had been government land and purchased at an earlier day by Mr. Hartshorn. The boundary of the Jurupa grant being uncertain, in the purchase there was left a strip of a little more than one mile wide which embraced govern- ment land which was taken up by settlers when Riverside was founded.
In 1874 S. C. Evans, Sr., and Wm. T. Sayward purchased the Harts- horn tract and being unable to make arrangements with the Southern California Colony Association to carry water for them for their lands, commenced the construction of a canal of their own to water the Harts- horn lands and some 3,000 acres more that they had purchased from the Sobrante de San Jacinto Ranch, commonly known as the Tin Mine tract. This gave them all of the land from the government lands under the waters of the Southern California Colony Association's canal to the Temescal River wash.
The incoming of and purchase of these lands by Messrs. Evans and Sayward, the building of another canal and the introduction of new capital, marked the dawn of a new era-the end of the colony system- and the beginning of the commercial system in land settlement in Southern California and which later on spread up the coast and over the San Joaquin Valley, extending finally to the Sacramento Valley and its waters and later on when improved machinery for well digging, pumping and distribution of water made possible a great increase in the area of land fit for the cultivation of the finer fruits and vegetables for which Southern California has gained such a great reputation. This extension of area was greatly helped by artesian wells and the building of reservoirs in the mountains, by the impounding of storm and surplus waters in the winter season.
THE SPANISH SYSTEM. On the acquisition of the United States by California it was tacitly agreed to that until necessity should arise, the old Spanish laws and customs should prevail. This applied to the appro- priation and use of water. The laws in regard to water came from Spain largely through the Moors, but there was also another and conflicting understanding which was that where there were no conflicting laws in the United States, the common law of England should prevail. This brought in the doctrine of Riparian rights, that landowners on a running stream of water should all have equal rights to the use of the waters of that stream and that no one living on the upper waters of a stream of running water had any right to divert the waters of a stream or river to the detriment of those living lower down. The waters might be diverted for power purposes, but they must be returned undiminished in quantity. The United States has affirmed that principle in the case of navigable waters in rivers such as the Colorado River, which would also apply to the claims of Mexico at the point where the Colorado River enters into Mexico.
It seems strange to us of this late day, that when the treaty was made with Mexico on the acquisition of California, that the waters of the Col- orado River which may be said to rise wholly in the United States should not have been included in the United States, being a navigable river in its lower waters. There was nothing in the way of that measure, but our wise men and politicians of that day could see nothing in the immense territory that came into our possession then but a barren desert.
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However that may be, the doctrine of Riparian rights is the law in California, and no lawyer has seen fit to declare the absurdity of the claim and the courts have persistently ignored the question until it has become a settled custom. This doctrine has been the cause of a great deal of litigation and enormous expense and is a something that should never have found a place in California. This same law of Riparian rights caused the purchase of a grist mill and water rights pertaining thereto by Judge North in the early days on Warm Creek where it enters the Santa Ana River. This was a great benefit to Riverside later on when the water system was purchased from the Riverside Land and Irrigating Company.
The formation of the Southern California Colony Association for the settlement of people on lands and furnishing them with water was a new thing in land settlement in California and there was neither law nor precedent to guide its officials and there were no by-laws or regulations for guidance in the matter.
So far as the regulations in regard to the founding of the colony and its guidance was concerned, everything was perfect in its way and noth- ing has arisen to question the wise judgment of Judge North and his associates in the founding of the colony and everything down to the present time is running as planned fifty years ago and has been a greater success than the most sanguine could have anticipated.
The water question was another thing, but as time has gone on, experi- ence has suggested improvements and methods that are now well-nigh perfect and great improvement on the crude and imperfect methods of the older Californians under the mission fathers.
In the first years of the settlement, in the happy days of yore, every- thing went like clock-work until when trees were growing larger and returns anticipated it was found there was no certainty about the future supply of water. It was owned by a corporation of which the largest part of the stock was in the hands of one man and some uneasiness began to be felt. The Yankee who had been used to self-government away back East in town government could not see just why in such an important matter as a voice in the management of water, which was the life of the land, he should be left out. To be exact, however, the bulk of the settlers took no thought for the morrow. but drifted along, hoping for the best and that somehow things would in the end come out all right.
To make matters worse lands were cheap-too cheap-as has since been demonstrated for irrigated lands where hundreds of dollars per acre could be realized from the crops grown on them. Water, too, was cheap-too cheap-as experience since has amply shown, but we were slowly learning. Land sales were very slow and many of the sales were from settlers on the government lands to the detriment of the funds of the company and this caused trouble.
This was a something that was not and could not really be foreseen. People on the outside were waiting to see how much of a success the Riverside experiment was going to be. Mr. Felton had furnished most of the money so far without any return and naturally had done all that could be reasonably expected of him and things were somewhat at a standstill.
The coming of Sayward and Evans brought fresh capital and new life into the settlement. At first it was proposed to make an arrangement whereby the canal of the Southern California Colony Association could be used by the new company on the Hartshorn land, feeling that there was nothing to do but to build a new canal which would involve the outlay of large capital that would be needed in other ways. To lay out so much
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capital and be out of it for years before adequate returns could be had from it, required foresight and courage and these were qualities that Mr. Evans possessed in an eminent degree. Mr. Sayward was what may be called in modern times a boomer and occupied a useful place in calling attention to Riverside and its advantages as a home for people who wanted to live in an agreeable and healthy climate. He had been an old sea captain and sailed the seas over most of the known world and owned his own ship, but the loss of ship and cargo and nearly his own life caused him to abandon a seafaring life. Like so many of the early pioneers of Southern California he was an Eastern man.
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