USA > California > Riverside County > History of San Bernardino and Riverside counties, Volume I > Part 71
USA > California > San Bernardino County > History of San Bernardino and Riverside counties, Volume I > Part 71
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it is a great publicity medium. The students come from Hawaii, Alabama, Vancouver, Toronto, Texas, and all the western states. The teachers are influential leaders in their profession and come from East and West.
More than 300 students and teachers have been connected with the school.
The county service is of two kinds: County Public Branches and School Branches. The County Branches are operated under a contract with the supervisors by which the Riverside Public Library assumes the functions of a County Free Library under the law of 1911. That carries with it the power to make further contracts with elementary and high schools for their special service. The County Free Library gives book service and its transportation to all the established public libraries in the county and to any crossroads or community that will assume custodian- ship and provide a place for the books. The expense is in the purchase of new books to meet requests and in the handling of the increasing bulk of requests, their records and the searching of shelves and out charges, day by day, by expert assistants at the main library.
The service to schools is an extremely complicated and technical serv- ice and its description would occupy too much space here.
The city service is, of course, the most intimate and personal service. The county service is designed to reach the remotest reader with the book, and the California system is the pattern for the whole country, but the city service offers a staff of experts handling a rich store of all sorts of human knowledge and with the direct, personal contact. Its circulation of books for home use is large-very large and important, but the really important community service is the use of an excellent reference equip- ment supplemented by home use. To say that the public library circulated 135.000 books within the city is to leave the tale of actual service untold.
Hundreds of reference and research topics are handled for the people every month and the telephone rings all day long.
Riverside owns 10,000 public documents in addition to other reference material. There are but three such collections in Southern California and our neighbors from leagues around come here for official data of all sorts. The great magazine and newspaper indexes, some covering more than 100 years are at Riverside and our experts make them useful to the whole country. Debaters, club workers, legislators and all sorts and conditions of men depend almost wholly on a reference collection such as that used here.
A large and generous service is also rendered from our State Library, which is a remarkable institution and is the parent of all the county libra- ries in the State.
The collection of rare and expensive books on many subjects is used at all times by city and county residents and many of these items draw visitors from a distance who prefer to work in the Riverside Public Library where the conditions for research work and reference are inviting.
The extension work includes publications settting forth the riches of the library, public lecture courses, organization work at home and abroad, group and club work needing library support and advice, and especially in assisting the excellent work of the extension department of our State University. The university has begun an enormous task of public educa- tion which must have the help of every library.
By arrangements at the central office in Berkeley we are notified of each new correspondence student; immediately we send advice of the most useful material to that student and keep a live record file of our part of the work.
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It's wonderful to view the work of a modern library, but it has just begun the survey of its areas of useful service and is moving into public esteem and appreciation.
We who work in libraries feel the load of work and we seldom heed the fact that our public knows very little about all this service.
Often it is said to librarians, "Why don't you let the public know what libraries are doing?" It is not an easy matter to explain why we do not tell the public more about what libraries are doing, but some of the reticence is because technical workers are busy serving those who have found out what can be had in a library for the asking and the rest of the public are busy with other things. It is a matter of public growth and the crowding in of actual library needs ; that will bring more and more of our people into libraries. Meanwhile we librarians have our hands and heads occupied with check-lists, catalogs, budgets and estimates and an occasional vision of an adequate equipment and floor space for a service that in modern libraries has outgrown the plant.
The foregoing by Joseph F. Daniels stating what was proposed has all been carried out successfully and the death of Mr. Daniels before his plans could be carried out was a distinct loss to Riverside, especially as he had more enlarged plans for the library which embraced a much larger grant of money from the Carnegie funds in the form of an endowment for an educational institution which would place the Riverside Library in a position by itself. At all times there are a large number of books out in the country. One of the difficulties of a public library is the wear out and loss of rare books and editions that cannot be replaced.
CHAPTER XXIX
CITRUS FAIR
The street fair held in 1900 was such a unique and jolly thing in its way and withal so pleasing to everyone and a relic of past things that it deserves preservation in a chapter by itself. It was really a citrus fair and meeting of the Twenty-eight Agricultural District Fair, but took on the novelty of a street fair as well, said street fairs having been popular and successful in the East about that time. It was well termed "A Mer- chants' Carnival Week." It was given jointly under the auspices of the merchants and business men of Riverside and of the board of directors of the Twenty-eighth Agricultural District, comprising San Bernardino and Riverside counties, on Saturday, April 14, to Saturday, April 21, 1900. Of it the Riverside Daily Press said there had been only six weeks in which to plan it, and stated as follows:
"One day L. W. Buckley walked into the Glenwood Hotel with a letter of introduction to F. A. Miller. Incidentally the letter stated that Mr. Buckley had managed the Irish Fair in San Francisco and many street fairs in the East. Mr. Miller at once asked him if he could not manage a street fair in Riverside and as a sequence to the conversation a little gathering of business men was held in the city hall to discuss the proposition. All favored it." Mr. Buckley was made manager and George Frost president. Committees were appointed and the fair started off with a good deal of enthusiasm.
An editorial in the Daily Press, under the present management, said : "Riverside is always at the front in matters of enterprise and it seems natural. therefore, for us to hold the first street fair west of the Rockies. We are accustomed to set the pace and to take some pride in the fact that we have introduced to the Pacific Coast a unique and interesting combination of the best displays of the old fashioned country fairs with the latest attractions of the great expositions as well as their industrial and educational features." Here was a great opportunity for the tourist who was beginning to come to California in increasing numbers to the Pacific Coast and outside of Los Angeles, by virtue of our greater progress, we had greater attractions in an industrial line than any other place in Southern California. Nineteen hundred was also a very dry season, in fact, the last of three and here would be a grand opportunity to show our magnificent water system, domestic as well as irrigating, as water at that time was even a greater asset than now.
The fair was held just at the advent of the automobile and it was hardly in evidence at all, but had been heard of and spoken of as the "horseless carriage." So it may well be said that the Riverside Street Fair marked the dividing line between the old and the new. Although there were horse races they were really not a part of the fair, for they were held on the old race track grounds out of town, below Chinatown, and rather out of the way for the average pedestrian, but in place of that there were bicycle races of various kinds participated in by noted bicycle racers from outside places and as everybody that could afford it and was able to ride, possessed one, naturally the races excited a good deal of interest.
So many were the various phases of the amusements and distractions, large and active committees being appointed for every "event" that about the whole of the available people in Riverside were engaged in one
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form or other. There was an extensive program and catalogues printed giving full details in every respect and as the Twenty-eighth Agricultural District Fair had a state appropriation of money the agricultural features were well represented with offers of diplomas, medals and money awards for exhibits.
Most interesting of all, perhaps, in the catalogue and premium list were pictures of some of the fair ladies who took leading parts in the fair and accompanying carnival and more gratifying still is the fact that on the fair and younger looking faces of ten ladies who are still well known, out of the ten only one, Mrs. W. S. Ruby, has passed away. I am sure it will be a great pleasure for the people of Riverside to hunt up the program of the fair in the library and look again on the faces as they were twenty-one years ago-almost a generation! The names are familiar to everybody and may be seen on the streets every day almost- Mrs. J. J. Hewitt, Mrs. H. Simmons, Mrs. L. F. Darling, Mrs. W. S. Ruby, Miss Eugenia Fuller, Mrs. J. A. Simms, Mrs. E. B. Howe, Mrs. H. H. Monroe, Mrs. W. P. Russell, Mrs. C. R. Stibbens. The list of the other ladies are too long for publication here. It is gratifying to know that a much greater proportion of the ladies on the committees are alive and well today than of the gentlemen and it is enough to make one who has passed through these lively and memorable times feel sad and lonely on looking over the list of men who took an active part therein to miss them on the street and if they still remain to mark the "ravages of time" on their once stalwart frames.
In addition to the various features of a strictly agricultural horti- cultural and industrial fair there were polo, golf and bicycle events in various ways. Then there was a baby show in which about eighty babies were entered in connection with which there was a baby coach parade and prizes for the prettiest white baby, the prettiest colored baby, the prettiest Indian baby, the prettiest Mexican baby, the best natured baby, the fattest baby, the reddest haired baby, the brownest eyed baby, the youngest baby with a tooth, the heaviest baby of its age, the baby with the most beautiful hair, the baby with prettiest dimple, the baby with the sweetest mouth, the baby with the bluest eyes, the best behaved and the best pair of twins which latter were Spanish. The judges on the baby show were all from the outside of Riverside, thus saving our people the diffi- cult task of deciding as to the merits of the various competing babies. In addition to the features mentioned above there were juvenile cake walkers, floral parade, a bicycle parade, automobile race, street vaudeville, old country sports, tug of war, fraternal society exhibits, parades, etc. Bear flag day and at night street dances. There were also in the theaters special plays and amusements. All in all there were such novelties and alluring specialties that great crowds came from all surrounding towns and indeed from all over the state so that the schools even were closed for want of pupils.
It was estimated that the Los Angeles Times in its reports and notices of the fair gave in addition to paid advertisements, if it had been paid for in the regular way, $1,000 of free advertisements. Special excursions were run by rail from all directions. It was admitted on all hands that Riverside fairly outdid herself in every direction. There was nothing to offend the most fastidious taste, the Sunday exhibit being entirely in accord with the religious sentiment of the community and everything was pleasing, street dances and all. On the corner of Eighth and Main streets there was a large representation of the Riverside irrigating system. There was also an orange wrapping and packing contest for girls and box making contest for men. The schools were all closed in the afternoon. The
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Perris Indian School Band also took part in the proceedings. This was before the Indian school was established in the Perris Valley where it was first located, but afterwards abandoned in favor of Riverside. The Glenwood Tavern had an immense lawn tent for refreshments with 40 tables and 15 waiters. The Woman's Parliament of Southern California held also an important meeting, G. Rouse & Co. were there, too. The fruit display (oranges mostly) was extensive and represented by most of the old exhibitors who had borne the burden and heat of the day in earlier times. Such men as Backus, Cutter, Moulton & Green, Darling, Huse, and Boyd taking premiums.
Most of the old names who were prominent at that time in a business way are absent now, but there still remain Ormand, Hosp, W. E. Johnson, G. Rouse, Pann Bros., Pequenat, Bettner, Tetley, Jarvis, Dinsmore.
The display of citrus fruits was very extensive and fine all of the leading growers vieing with one another in making as fine an exhibit as was possible in order to make a good impression on visitors. As was customary at all of our citrus fairs and displays of fruit W. H. Backus took a large portion of the premiums on all varieties. The Arlington Heights Fruit Company took the first premium for the best plate of navels. The fruit exhibit was held in a large tent on the corner of Seventh and Main streets. There was hardly any fruit on exhibit from places outside of Riverside County. There were some dates on exhibit from Wolfskill but as they did not attract any marked attention they must have been either unripe or of an inferior variety for if they had been at all of good quality they would have got more public notice, especially as importations of the best varieties were growing at the Chino Experiment Station that had never fruited. The other features of the fair, finely decorated booths by the local merchants with attractive displays of their various wares, as almost to overshadow the horticultural display. There were, however, interesting meetings of leading fruit growers from all parts of Southern California, but the citrus and agricultural fairs had in a measure so fallen into neglect that it was hard to resuscitate them, the more modern and up-to-date from not having been perfected as it is today.
The fair management had provided so much in the line of vaudeville that was free on the street that it distracted the attention of visitors. Among the memorable ones was an exhibition of firemen, not only of Riverside, but of competitors from San Diego and Los Angeles which came here from Los Angeles on a special train bringing a fire engine with them. This gave a fine opportunity to show the Riverside domestic water system which had pressure enough to throw water over the highest building. The parade of firemen with the hook and ladder systems of that time drew a great deal of attention. In the vaudeville line the directors of the fair went to considerable expense to bring leading attrac- tions from outside, among them being Papinta the queen of mirror dances and noted fire dancer.
The Woman's Parliament of Southern California drew a good deal of attention as the woman's movement being comparatively new, many were attracted by its novelty, but the discussions showed that the women were catching on to many of the live and pressing topics of the day.
In addition to our own Indian Band from the Perris Indian School, which was preparing even then to move its location to better quarters in Riverside, the City Guard Band of San Diego helped on all occasions for the whole week. Not the least attraction was the Baby Show with its parade with babies from as far away as Los Angeles from which place there was a special train run every day and there seemed to be general
BUILDING OF CITRUS EXPERIMENT STATION
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satisfaction with the awards in the baby exhibit for there were so many prizes that almost every baby got something.
In the polo races Robert Bettner was then as he still is, twenty years later, one of the moving spirits.
The Coontown Ragtime Opera Company with free exhibits of cake- walks and other features helped to keep up the excitement. All in all it was the first real opportunity for the old pioneers who had been too busy to occupy themselves with any such frivolity heretofore to take a "day off" as it were and abandon themselves to the occasion and all enjoyed themselves.
L. C. Tibbets had a booth to himself and kept busy disseminating verbal and printed information about the navel orange. This was after the death of Mrs. Tibbets and shortly before his own death. The fair, as the local paper said, was one "round of enjoyment day and night," such as had never been seen in Riverside before, the whole fair wound up by a masked street ball on Saturday night, April 21, 1900.
CITRUS EXPERIMENT STATION. The Citrus Experiment Station, as in operation today at Riverside, marks a great advance from the nucleus which had its origin in Riverside about 1867 or 1868, when a few resi- dents met in Riverside to test the qualities of a new orange called the navel and pronounced it first class.
From that time on was made up of experiments in citrus culture until the establishment of the Citrus Experiment Station in Riverside by virtue of an act of the Legislature passed in 1905 in response to a growing realization of the need of local institutions to provide for the investigation of special plant disease and citrus problems.
A brief review of the various steps that led up to the establishment of a State Citrus Experiment Station may not be amiss as a sort of prelude to what we have now. Riverside being the first colony or set- tlement devoted almost entirely to citrus culture may be said to have been alone in experimental work until she showed her adaptability to the growth of citrus fruits and as the first in the propagation of the navel orange might well lay claim to the right to have the location of the Citrus Experiment Station, more especially as she had been laboring from the very foundation to understand more of the conditions of an industry that was almost entirely new to California and in some respects to the United States. Various untoward conditions were encountered in Riv- erside that were overcome by experience and loss to individuals. For instance, who could tell us that to move an range tree in winter would result in the loss of the tree? Many a valuable tree that cost sometimes as high as $5.00 in Los Angeles proved an entire loss owing to being moved at the wrong time of the year. Again, who could tell an Eastern man that the best time to remove and plant a citrus tree was after the commencement of the spring growth and that citrus trees could be moved with perfect safety in midsummer? These were costly lessons. Then it was found that certain scale insects were very destructive to orange trees and that the destruction of the white scale, the most dangerous of all scales to citrus trees, was the result of a suggestion made by Professor Riley of the Smithsonian Institute at a citrus fair held in Riverside, that the introduction of a parasite from the country from whence the Aus- tralian navel came might be a remedy. But who could tell until tried that it would be a success? Then frost proved to be at times destructive and costly. Does the average newcomer who goes into orange growing know that the best methods yet discovered in the line of frost protection were the result of observations by many resident orange growers of
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Riverside under the direction of the Riverside Horticultural Club stay- ing out all night in the orchards to watch the effects of various suggested remedies, such as smudges, of wet straw, fires from brush, coal fires in wire baskets, hot water and crude oil in various forms until we have the universal oil fires which in extreme cold are an almost perfect pro- tection ? Who can tell the hardships of wandering around in cold frosty nights by the hardy pioneer who had "vision"? Then there was the early newspaper (even before there were any telegraphs to give the news from outside) to discuss unsolved problems and to disseminate informa- tion on the financial probabilities and risks of the new industry. The newspaper was there to report the results of experiments to record the papers that were read at the meetings of the Horticultural Club and the discussions thereon. Where but at Riverside could we look to for advocacy of quarantine laws to protect us against the introduction of destructive pests or laws in regard to irrigation and the use of water?
Riverside has been the parent of all beneficial legislative measures in regard to irrigation, scale pests and indeed of everything relating to our special industries of Southern California. Admitting all of these allegations, until it was found that the conduct of the various problems that beset the fruit grower was getting too large for the individual, the natural resort would be the State and Nation when it could be shown that its financial importance was so great as to justify the entry of the State to the help of the individual.
The first citrus experiment station was west of Rubidoux near the base of Mount Rubidoux and consisted of twenty acres, but it was found after the lapse of years that much more room was required. J. H. Reed and E. A. Chase were the two men to whom we are most directly indebted for the establishment of the station, aided by M. Estudillo, member of the Legislature for the time being. That citrus experiment station served a most important purpose and another act of the State Legislature, approved by Gov. Hiram W. Johnson, June 9, 1913, pro- vided "for the purchase for the use of the department of agriculture of the University of California, of land and water rights in any of the counties of Los Angeles, Riverside, Orange, San Bernardino, San Diego, Imperial, Ventura or Santa Barbara and for the planting of said lands and making an appropriation therefor."
Sixty thousand dollars or as much thereof as would be required was appropriated for the purpose. Another bill appropriated $100,000 for buildings and equipment of laboratory for the new station. Another $25,000 was given for the erection of a director's residence and other necessary buildings. The first station is still in use. The regents of the State University on December 23, 1914, voted to purchase a site offered at Riverside. The purchase was finally consummated June 18, 1915.
The location selected embraces a tract of 475 acres of land, of which about 300 acres are tillable, the remainder being rough, rocky hill land suitable only for range and forestry work.
The site is two and one-half miles from the center of Riverside and is traversed by the paved Box Springs Boulevard, the principal interior road to San Diego. The land is considerably higher than Riverside toward which it very gradually slopes. The outlook from the elevated parts of the tract above the boulevard where the laboratory buildings are located is rarely equalled.
The laboratory buildings were completed in the spring of 1917 and were first occupied May 21, 1917. The laboratories are well equipped with gas, water, electricity for power and light, compressed air and suction. Separate photographic darkrooms are provided for each division
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of the work. The director's residence occupies a prominent rocky knoll and other suitable sites are available for residences and other buildings whenever necessary. The barns and other necessary buildings are erected at a short distance away on the lower ground. There are about forty employes and professors around the place. All of the various depart- ments of a well regulated experiment station are provided for and impor- tant results are likely to be attained in time to come.
Latterly there has arisen the need for a farm school and for which 300 acres of suitable land has been purchased and paid for, but during the last legislature a move was inaugurated to place its location elsewhere and a commission was provided for that would locate a site and so some uncertainty prevails in that regard until another legislature may take action. Anyone acquainted with the situation would deem that Riverside is the logical place because it has always been at the front in regard to progress in fruit culture. Whatever has been done has been done well heretofore and now it is the center of a large farming region with a greater variety of soil and climate than can be found in any one place in Southern California as well as variations in climate and should it be located in River- side it will be in a congenial community the inhabitants of which were more genuine home founders than any section of Southern California and a farm school in any other section would be in a great measure isolated from other institutions of the kind.
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