Northside - City of Riverside

HISTORY
As WWI came to a close, America’s collective focus narrowed once more, and the
quiet growth during the first decades of the 20 th century was called upon to support
an unprecedented boost in regional population. The effects of the increase in oil
production during and after WWI, the rising popularity of motion pictures, and the
booming tourist trade all served to bring settlers and dollars into southern California
and prompted the real estate boom of the 1920s and the development of southern
California’s first suburbs. Approximately 1,440,000 new residents settled in southern
California during the 1920s, an impact that was felt locally (McWilliams 1976:135-
137).
Though Riverside’s agricultural landscape slowly began to transform and shift
interest to other agricultural products and industries, citrus remained the economic
and cultural identity of the city. A shift, though, in the City’s dependence on
agriculture and citrus can be seen in both residential and commercial/industrial
development with the establishment of small- to large-scale family farms, mainly in
portions of the Northside and in the Arlington area, and commercial/industrial
interests are both diversified in terms of products and services and consolidated
geographically. During this period, countywide citrus production and acreage was
maintained or increased with the inclusion of new citrus production in Corona,
Hemet-San Jacinto and Elsinore areas, even though local acreage was decreased in
favor of other crops or urbanization (Patterson 1996:380-81). In addition, a shift in
local labor groups from Japanese to Mexican workers reflected both America’s
alliance with Japan during WWI and the effects of the end of the Mexican
Revolution, which prompted large-scale immigration from the south.
Though many Mexican immigrants must surely have settled in areas where
residents of Mexican-American heritage were already established such as Casa
Blanca and Arlington, some undoubtedly settled on the Northside as today, over
half of Northside residents are Hispanic. Some residents and descendents of La
Placita and Agua Mansa are believed to have settled in the Northside after the
Spanish settlement declined. Despite the lack of evidence of Northside Hispanics in
the historic record, other Spanish-speakers working as laborers and professionals are
listed in early city directories whose names match those known to be associated with
the Spanish settlement like Garcia, Romo, and Pena (Bynon 1893-4:n.p.; Patterson
1996:132).
Though not on the Northside, public building continued elsewhere in the City with
the construction of three junior high schools in the 1920s and the Municipal
Auditorium (1928-29). Chain stores like JC Penney and Sears Roebuck & Company
arrived in Riverside, and a motion picture studio was constructed about 1920. The
1920s and 1930s saw the development of the fine arts in Riverside with the
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