A Brief History of Riverside, CA

John W. North, a staunch temperance-minded abolitionist from Tennessee, who had previously founded Northfield, Minnesota, founded the city in the early 1870s beside the Santa Ana River. A few years after, the navel orange was planted and found to be such a success that full-scale planting started. Riverside was temperance minded (few saloons if any were allowed in Riverside proper), and Republican. Investors from England and Canada transplanted traditions and activities adopted by prosperous citizens. As a result, the first golf course and polo field in Southern California were built in Riverside.