Updated: October 8, 2006
rom the top of Mt. Rubidoux, you can see in all directions for many miles. At one time, there were plans to build a hotel on the mountain, but that effort failed. Mission Inn owner Frank Miller and some other investors later bought Mt. Rubidoux. They enlisted the same engineer who laid out the roads at Yellowstone National Park to design a road to the top. In addition to the view, towers, bridges, fountains, a giant cross, and many plaques eventually provided reasons for people to visit the mountain. The World Peace Tower and Bridge shown in this photograph were finished in 1925, and dedicated to Frank Miller. In 1955, Frank Miller’s family deeded the mountain to the City of Riverside
In this photo, large blankets of dark appear in the distance. These are rows and rows of orange trees. The first Washington Navel trees came to Riverside around 1873. By 1893, twenty thousand acres of oranges had been planted in Riverside, most of them budded, or grafted, with the superior Navel variety. By 1910, Riverside took pride in its more than one million orange trees. (Sackman, p.22). Every single Navel tree was descended from the original two sent from Washington, D.C. to Luther and Eliza Tibbetts. Orange groves are no longer as visible as they once were in Riverside. Many of the orange trees are gone now, replaced by houses, stores, schools, ornamental plant nurseries, and other buildings, but the richness of their history remains.
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