Northside - City of Riverside

COMMERCIAL/INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT
Though citrus continued to dominate the local economy until about 1930, the 1913
freeze and the effects of World War I caused Riversiders to reevaluate and diversify
their commercial interests. Residential development occurred in a portion of the
Main Street Industrial Corridor, but its conversion throughout the 20 th century to
nearly exclusively commercial/industrial use was a sign of the decreased
dependence on citrus and other agriculture and has prompted its identification as an
industrial corridor unique from other areas of Riverside.
Subdivided between 1906 and 1908 into four tracts south of the present SR-60 – E.N.
Smith Subdivision (1906), North Main Street Tract (1907), File’s Subdivision No. 3
(1907), and Wauregan’s Tract (1908) – the corridor quickly developed into three
distinct areas and became connected to First Street with the extension of Main Street
south. At one time, the Southern Pacific Company railroad line (1892) crossed over
Main Street between First and Poplar Streets from the east/northeast where it
entered the city along Massachusetts Avenue. At that point, it branched into two
different directions – south to run parallel with the ATSF railroad along the citrus
packinghouses on Pachappa Avenue, and west, along the railroad right-of-way in
the Southeast Quadrant and across Main Street. At Main Street, the line split again,
with two bridges over one area of Main Street, heading north and south. According
to Sanborn Maps (1931), the concrete trestle over Main Street turned north as the
Riverside, Rialto, and Pacific Railway, and the wooden trestle over Main Street
turned south, curving onto Market Street, to be used by PE for the local electric
streetcar line. North of First Street, Main Street still dips steeply at the former
railroad right-of-way property, and access to shops from this area to Poplar Street is
made most convenient for traveling consumers with asphalted, angled parking stalls
that flow directly from the roadway. A WPA project in 1940 added concrete stops to
this portion of Main Street.
From the former Southern Pacific Company railroad right-of-way south to First
Street, the land remained largely open. On the west side of Main Street, the PE
housed a substation, and, later, Boyd & Lovesee Lumber Company occupied the
area. A railroad freight house, bunkhouses, and the John Suverkrup Lumber
Company were located on the east. New construction has eliminated this portion of
the corridor; in 1991-93, three buildings associated with the Salvation Army were
constructed on the site of the Suverkrup lumberyard between Main and Orange
Streets and in 2002, a low-income housing tract replaced the Boyd & Lovesee
lumberyard and three historic single-family residences between Main and Market
Streets.
97