USA > California > Riverside County > History of San Bernardino and Riverside counties, Volume I > Part 68
USA > California > San Bernardino County > History of San Bernardino and Riverside counties, Volume I > Part 68
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Whether Dr. Dio Lewis was expert enough in this line, history does not say, but the story as related by himself is that at one of his camps he met two young men on horseback on a camping tour. This was in the hills running between San Diego and San Jacinto considerably inland from the coast. A campfire acquaintance during the evening disclosed the fact that one of the young gentlemen was a young woman. This was in the days when it was considered immodest for a woman to ride astride horseback with a man's saddle or to wear clothes that had the least suggestion of man's attire, but some time after the bloomer costume cre-
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ated such a scandal or was the occasion of stale or ever ribald jokes that showed the moral status of the utterer. Today on hiking excursions in the mountain, camping trips for health and recreation, the young lady with knickerbockers, leggins and heavy boots is such a common sight as to create no comment or suggestion of male attire to hide sex, for as a rule a woman can no more disguise her sex by men's clothing to the observant man than a man can hide his by wearing woman's attire.
There was a little bit of romance about this young woman riding around the country camping out with a man's saddle in male attire with a man for company. The two young people were man and wife and from New York's "Four Hundred"! From the story Dr. Lewis got the young people were in love with each other in New York and wished to get married, but the young woman was so much threatened with tuber- culosis, in fact, had it and the doctors strongly advised against marriage under the circumstances. Well in this case love laughed at doctors as it is traditionally reported to do at locksmiths and a marriage took place among New York's upper ten. The young people, as the saying is, "took the bit in their teeth" and ran away to California with the deter- mination to overcome threatened death by coming close to nature and living the simple life in the open air and thus Dr. Lewis found them and made a pleasant acquaintance.
A season or two later found Dio Lewis in New York and in Central Park and again met the couple riding in their carriage as man and wife and was immediately recognized and welcomed and nothing would do but he must take dinner with them. After dinner and talking camping in California and when everyone was out of the way. Mrs. B. motioned Dr. Lewis to follow her. She took him away secretly and mysteriously to a secret room and showed him all the make up of camp life, man's sad- dle and garments with all the camping outfit, and in addition to that perfect health, a confirmation of some of Dr. Lewis's reform ideas. Such happiness as these which are quite common so far as health mat- ters which are conimon enough make the people of California loyal to their state.
WEATHER CONDITIONS. Although the climate of Riverside can well be classed as an arid climate. at long intervals it can show extremes on either side. It may be, however, that since settlement, the influence of trees and irrigation over large aras may produce such modifications that the calamities of the past will not again occur and, however, that may be, since settlement was made and so much of the area has been planted to trees and growing vegetation, the calamities and losses caused by extremely dry or wet seasons can never recur again. We have good reason to hope and believe that settlement and cultivation, together with the planting of trees, and the effect of so much shade with addi- tion of more moisture, have had their effect in modifications which make the climate pleasanter on the whole.
In the early days there were, if memory is a reliable guide, many more bright sunny days in which the sun rose bright and clear, and remained clear for the whole of the day and there is further the unques- tionable fact that the sea breeze is tempered in the months of July and August, at the time when it is most regular by the great mass of green vegetation, which it passes over before it reaches us. When there was no green vegetation between us and the sea, the breeze in passing over the hot soil became as it reached Riverside. almost like the heat coming out of a baker's oven at some distance from the month or door of it. Hence the primitive houses of that day were usually built so that when
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the front and back doors were opened the breeze would feel appreciably cool and refreshing. As soon as irrigating came in everyday use the wind became more and more modified. The same conditions prevail now when it is blowing a norther, which comes off the Mojave Desert and the air again becomes heated up before it reaches us, or when we have thunder clouds hanging over the mountains and thunder in the mountains, for an occasional day or two in July and August, then we feel the heat again in an excessive degree, but we have always the consolation that it is cool enough at night to permit refreshing sleep. The same prevails out on the Colorado Desert in the Salton Sea basin, where the average temperature is high enough to permit of the maturing of dates. This dry atmosphere (so dry that disease germs can hardly exist) is one of the assets of the climate of Southern California, for it soon dries up any decaying vegetation or stagnant water and permits of sleeping for months at a time in screen porches, in both lower and upper stories, in the houses and in the open air. When we have north- ers which occur occasionally in the months before and after the rainy season sets in, they are full of electricity and are really the most uncom- fortable weather that we have. Animals and everything get so charged with electricity that it at times is visible to the naked eye, but more especially on touching or stroking the fur or hair of domestic animals. Where this great amount of electricity comes from no one in the scienti- fic line appears to have given to it any studv or attention. The prob- ability is that the friction caused by the wind in passing over the ground, and the drifting sand generates electricity in the same way that it is generated in the power houses. It does not seem to have any injurious effect on anyone, but it always appeals to one as a good time (if there are no pressing duties elsewhere) to stay indoors.
After our long rainless summer, lasting sometimes as long as six or eight months. the rain is always welcome and everybody and everything seem to rejoice in it. The trees seem refreshed after their bath and in ordinary seasons when we have our average rainfall-say ten inches or so -there is in a sense the most enjoyable time of the year when the grass grows and the plains and hills get ready to blossom with the many hued flowers in the spring. Occasionally on the dry and barren desert, when they have spring rains, the seed that has lain dormant perhaps for years will burst forth in such gorgeous hues that those who can, travel for many miles to see the beautiful flowers so abundant that they give a landscape of exceeding beauty.
In the foothills of the inner valleys the Eschscholtzia or California poppv, covers acres of the foothills, and the object of visits of manv families who go out on a picnic to pick and revel in the beauty of this copa de oro or cup of gold of the Spaniards.
Our season of growth of green vegetation is in our winter months. and easterners often wonder on looking at our rocky hills and mountains in the summer time with their dry vegetation, whether the eastern sum- mer climate with its growth of vegetation and the long period of barren- ness in winter is not preferable to our long dry summers. But when they once experience a year of perpetual verdure under the stimulating influence of irrigation, there is never again a question of the delights of California. Green lawns all the year round, roses and other flowers always to be had, different flowers in succession and in their season, but always some kind and then perhaps above all ripe fruit in succession at all times, then there is no question and the insignificant drawbacks are all forgotten, but it was not always so.
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In the past under Spanish occupation, and since American occupation, there have been calamities climatic and otherwise. True we have earth- quakes that have been more destructive to property than life, but when we compare them with thunderstorms in the East, tornados, cyclones and tidal waves, not to speak of earthquakes even there, we in California feel like exclaiming that we are fortunate in being so exempt from great convulsions of nature.
The great earthquake in San Francisco, the most destructive so far as property was concerned, resulted in great loss much more from fire than earthquake because the earthquake broke the water pipes, and there was no water to quench the fire except near the bay, the fire had full sway for several days. But that San Francisco fire was not as great as the Chicago fire fifty years ago. Then so far as loss of life is concerned we have never had any worse earthquake than the one in Charleston, so far as destruction is concerned, or the Galveston disaster, or the more recent floods originating in the mountains of Colorado. But comparisons are invidious, and it is not necessary to carry them too far, for we are all too ready to magnify the ills of our neighbors and to overlook those of our own.
California does seem to have extremes of climate, so far as weather is concerned, which are the more observable on account of the general equable nature of the climate which are the more noticeable on that account. In the spring and fall of the year, we have weeks at a time so perfect that ordinary weather remarks are out of place, but there have been at long intervals extremes of wet or dry, or even of cold in winter that have been of the nature of calamities.
For instance, in 1862, in the month of January and later on, in which the rains were exceedingly heavy and almost continuous, and the lower lands were reduced to quagmires and travel on the mesas or dry table lands were so soft as to be almost entirely impassable.
Edward Ayer who was a sergeant in the California battalion stationed at a camp across the river Santa Ana from Riverside, called Jurupa in a diary in the possession of Dewitt Hutchings of the Mission Inn, gives a very vivid description of the troubles he had when he had orders to take part of his command from Jurupa to Warners Rranch. In hauling a cannon, his command took four days to cross the Riverside mesa, a dis- tance of less than four miles. This was, however, only a minor incident, for the rain was so heavy and continuous that the flood in many cases altered the configuration of the whole country. Lytle Creek which used to flow in well defined banks bordered with alder and other trees was completely obliterated and turned into a sandy, rocky waste without any channel changing more or less from year to year as local circumstances changed. The Santa Ana, however, being the largest body of water made more marked changes. It too flowed in a well defined channel all the way from the mountains past what is now Riverside and down through the canyon to the coast valley. Opposite, and above Riverside there was a settlement of Spaniards who were brought by Governor Bandini from New Mexico, and put on lands there as a protection from marauding Indians who came down the Cajon Pass on horse and cattle raids driving off the Spaniards' cattle and horses. The New Mexicans had a prosperous settlement and a little town which was all washed away and their lands converted from fruitful fields to a sandy waste. So great was the calamity to them that they were rendered destitute, and had to have help to re-establish themselves on other lands. A portion of them moved further north and up the river and formed the settlement of Agua Mansa, where they had their little church with its bell which
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could be plainly heard in Riverside on Sunday mornings for church serv- ice. The other portion of the settlers moved across the south side of the river and lower down to what was then known as Placita, now Span- ish town where they established a little school, where for years all the scholars were Spanish-speaking children, but where the school exercises were conducted in the English language, for it is one of the regulations of the United States educational system that English only shall be spoken and taught in the primary schools.
But about the great flood. It was so great that such vast quantities of rubbish and uprooted trees were carried in the flood water as to block up the channels of the rivers and water courses so that they overflowed and formed new channels and washed out the intervening country and great tracts of land covered with large trees got undermined and simply melted away in the flood carrying the trees to form obstruction further down. In Mill Creek canyon a great dam was formed by accumulated trees and other obstruction, which finally broke and by the increased flow of water caused greater damage. Those who were in the country at the time, always speaks of the great flood as something indescribable.
A year or two after there came such an unprecedented dry time that there was no winter vegetation and almost all the livestock, horses, cattle and sheep died from starvation. Then there was no possible chance for relief for lack of railroads or other means of transportation, and stock owners had to look on and see their stock dying off from day to day. This dry time caused the selling off and breaking up of some of the large Spanish grants, many of which were said to be fraudulent, being granted by the last Spanish governor during the unsettled period preceding the American occupation. Conditions of intercommunication are such now with railroads, auto-buses and concrete oiled roads that allowing that we could have such a dry time for stock on the ranges they could all be shipped out to place where feed or water were plenty. It is now a common sight to see train loads of stock being carried on the railway for better feed or to be fattened for market on the best fields, on the dis- carded tops or to the neighborhood of the beet factories to feed on the pulp as it is passed out with the sugar extracted. The great Imperial Valley with its extensive fields of alfalfa and large stores of hay with the corn stalks in the fields in the later months of the year, furnishes a source of feed practically inexhaustible being watered from the mighty Colorado River.
CHAPTER XXVII
PIONEER CELEBRATIONS
A notable gathering of old settlers was held on April 16, 1914, at the Glenwood Mission Inn at a banquet given by P. T. Evans in honor of the memory of his father S. C. Evans. There were about sixty present and (with the exception of one or two) it enbraced all who were alive at that time who came before 1880. The list is composed entirely of men, and if wives and children were to be included the list would be considerably increased.
This will be the only and the last opportunity to give a list of par- ticipators and the doing and sayings of the earlier pioneers by one of the active participators as copied from memory and from the daily papers.
Reminiscences of olden days-days when Riverside was in the mak- ing, long before water reached the parched area where now the City of Riverside stands-were exchanged last night at a delightful gathering of pioneers at the Mission Inn. This was the banquet tendered to River- siders whose residence antedated 1880, which was attended by 58 pioneers, men who had settled here in early days-some before the breaking out of the Civil war ; others as late as 1879. None were eligible who came as late as 1880. A fine spirit of comraderie similar to that of Grand Army gatherings prevailed, and to perpetuate the spirit and the history and early traditions of Riverside steps were taken to organize a historical society.
The banquet was served at 7:30 in the court banquet room of the Mission Inn. A profusion of vari-colored roses in baskets and comple- ment of asparagus ferns graced the tables. The place cards pictured the historic old stage coach which in early date transported our people to and from Colton, and out in the courtyard was the old coach itself, a treasured relic of a day and an era long gone.
The menu, to which appreciative justice was done, was as follows :
Vegetable Soup California Ripe Olives
Sweet Mixed Pickles Baked Whitefish, Italienne Potatoes Victoria
Chili Sauce
New Green Peas Buttered Carrots
Mashed Potatoes Chicken Pie English Salad
Butter Sponge Cake Strawberry Short Cake Navel Oranges Roquefort Cheese
Water Thins
Peppermint Wafers
Black Coffee Memories of Days Agone
Reviving memories of the establishment of the great horticultural industry of Riverside was a printed list at each plate of the planting of fruit trees and vines made up to 1880 by guests of the evening. This was from statistics compiled by the late Albert S. White and printed in the Press. The list follows :
Shugart & Waite-1,600 oranges, 400 lemons, 500 limes, 150 apricots, 300 deciduous and 1,000 vines.
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A. J. Twogood-400 oranges, 200 lemons, 30 apricots, 100 deciduous, 800 vines.
Geo. Thomas-100 oranges, 250 deciduous, 1,400 vines.
W. P. Russell-2,000 oranges, 90, lemons, 12 apricots, 100 deciduous, 120 vines.
M. F. Bixler-100 oranges, 69 apricots, 100 deciduous, 400 vines.
James Boyd-2,000 oranges, 600 lemons, 150 limes, 10 olives, 1,000 deciduous, 5,000 vines.
M. V. Wright-75 oranges, 50 lemons, 100 limes, 350 deciduous, 500 vines.
D. S. Strong-225 oranges, 5 lemons, 510 apricots, 75 deciduous, 400 vines.
Mrs. R. Shaw-800 oranges, 50 lemons, 40 limes, 5 apricots, 120 deciduous, 600 vines.
J. A. Wilbur-370 oranges, 25 deciduous.
J. B. Huberty-320 oranges, 200 lemons, 250 limes, 112 olives, 25 apricots, 50 deciduous, 1,400 vines.
F. A. Miller-1,500 oranges, 240 limes.
Miller & Newman-50 oranges, 10 limes, 10 apricots, 150 deciduous, 250 vines.
P. D. Cover-450 oranges, 125 lemons, 200 limes, 40 apricots, 250 deciduous.
D. Battles-450 oranges, 80 lemons, 84 limes, 60 apricots, 125 decidu- ous, 800 vines.
H. L. Stiles-75 oranges, 24 lemons, 60 deciduous, 300 vines.
R. P. Cundiff-500 oranges, 100 lemons, 20 apricots, 50 deciduous, 700 vines.
J. A. Simms-600 oranges, 16 lemons, 25 apricots, 85 deciduous.
J. W. Van Kirk-125 oranges, 25 lemons, 12 apricots, 50 deciduous, 200 vines.
H. A. Puls-250 oranges, 10 lemons, 10 limes, 10 apricots, 50 decidu- ous, 300 vines.
J. B. Crawford-80 oranges, 25 lemons, 100 vines.
B. F. Allen-58 oranges, 50 limes, 40 deciduous, 1,000 vines.
A. L. Whitney-35 oranges, 5 lemons, 5 apricots, 10 deciduous.
H. A. Westbrook-600 oranges, 75 lemons, 50 limes, 75 apricots, 500 deciduous, 1,600 vines.
R. W. & O. Ford-500 oranges, 5 apricots, 40 deciduous. 125 vines.
Geo. Cunningham-300 oranges, 100 lemons, 1000 limes, 15 decidu- ous, 90 vines.
Joseph Jarvis-2,200 oranges. 250 lemons, 40 limes, 600 apricots, 140 deciduous, 2,600 vines.
George Gittoe-140 oranges, 250 limes, 25 apricots, 100 deciduous, 15 vines.
J. E. Cutter-325 oranges, 6 olives, 30 apricots, 20 deciduous, 1,025 vines.
E. F. Kingman-810 oranges, 50 lemons, 225 limes, 10 apricots, 100 deciduous, 1,000 vines.
Not less interesting than the afterdinner talks were the informal reminiscences of the dinner hour, when the pioneers related incidents that helped to make early history. They told, for instance, of the big snow- storm of January, 1881, when the snow lay 10 inches deep on the ground. and no damage was done save to broken tree limbs; of the planting of several hundred acres of limes; of the sinking of the first well by H. P. Kyes, who got water at a depth of from 40 to 128 feet for a number of early settlers; of the first school down on the Castille ranch, taught by
Vol. 1-33
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J. E. Cutter ; of the coming of the railroad ; of a few hardships and more humorous incidents ; of days when dollars were scarce but courage was plentiful; of hope and ambitions and their greater realization. It was a rare pleasure for a tenderfoot of only 18 years' residence to listen to these happy revivals of olden times.
In announcing the more formal talks-all were really informal-the host said it was not difficult to realize the secret of Riverside's success as one looked over the company and measured the caliber of the men who had had a share in the making of the city beautiful. He felt honored in playing the host to so notable a company, but few would have realized there were so many left of the pioneers.
The master of the Inn was the first pioneer to be called on. Mr. Miller paid a tribute to the far-sighted vision of the men who planned
Two PIONEERS-JAMES BOYD AND HIS EUCALYPTUS TREE, THE SEED OF WHICH WAS PLANTED BY HIM IN 1872
Riverside. This was shown in the laying out of Magnolia Avenue by S. C. Evans and it was the more notable, because it was the first double driveway ever planned in California, and it was as well the first avenue to have double rows of trees. It was James Boyd who planted and cared for the trees and graded the avenue, Mr. Miller said.
Mr. Miller admitted that he made the bricks for the old abode that now stands in the courtyard of the present inn barefooted; how he herded sheep till he went to sleep on the job; of his experience in driving a mule at the tin mine and of being fired because he refused to work on Sunday. He declared there is no sweeter or cleaner home place on earth than the Riverside of today, and all credit should be given the pioneers who established the foundations on so broad a plan.
James Boyd paid a compliment to his fellow pioneers and said it was seldom that the pioneers are as well off as they are in Riverside. They were able to hold on through the lean years until they harvested
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the fruits of their early labors. He remembered when Frank Miller used to work for him and was a bit proud to remember that he did the first work on the old Glenwood Tavern. He told a story on Mayor Ford, who, as a boy of 19, was a member of the vigilante committee organized to deal with predatory horse thieves then infesting the country. Mr. Boyd had taken up a horse owned by a Colton man, and the latter sold it to one McCauley. McCauley came after the horse, and was attempt- ing to take the animal without paying Boyd's pound bill. Oscar pro- tested, McCauley told him to "go to," and Oscar retaliated by heaving a singletree at him. This struck him in the back of the head and put a quietus to the argument. McCauley had Oscar arrested and the justice instead of punishing Oscar fined McCauley $25 for failing to pay the pound bill. Thus was justice administered in the old days.
Mr. Boyd thought his family was the only one that came to Riverside for other than health conditions in the early seventies. It required great faith in those days to imagine bearing orange groves in Riverside. Look- ing ahead 40 years, Mr. Boyd predicted greater improvements in the next twoscore years than in the past.
Heber C. Parks of West Riverside was the oldest settler to talk. He came to this section in 1855, long before Riverside was thought of, and talked entertainingly of early life and conditions. He declared that in looking over the company he felt forty years younger. He remembered the first start in the settlement of Riverside, when a little one-story building was erected at Main and Eighth Streets. When Riverside was first started in 1874 few thought it would amount to anything and it made little progress until the Southern California Settlers' Association quit the project. Mr. Parks said he well remembered the great floods of 1861-62. Huge alders then aligned the Santa Ana and the river was confined to a deep and narrow channel. The channel hecame clogged at a point about where the Crestmore bridge is now and the water spread all over the lower area. The old Rubidoux homestead was turned into an island. The floods of '67 made an even wider channel. Mr. Parks did not know when the Rubidoux ranch house was built; it was there in 1855 when he came. The grist mill on the ranch was operated up to 1862.
A. J. Twogood said that he had been asked to tell what impressed him most in connection with Riverside, and declared that what impressed him most was the fact that he is still here. He is one of the few older settlers like Judge North, Doctor Shugart and Doctor Greves, who long ago went to their reward. In concluding, Mr. Twogood related an inci- dent to show "wild" was life in the early days. While D. C. Twogood went to Spring Brook for water a commotion was heard in the yard and a moment later a coyote chased a big rooster into the kitchen. It would be difficult to say which was the most scared-woman or coyote.
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