Riverside Audio Tours

Riverside, 50 miles east of Los Angeles in the Inland Empire, became the richest city in the United States per capita in 1895. The source of that wealth was a single species of tree: the Washington navel orange, three specimens of which arrived in 1873 as an experiment from USDA botanist William Saunders. Eliza Tibbets planted two of them in her garden on Magnolia Avenue. They thrived. By 1882, nearly half of California's citrus trees were growing in Riverside County, shipped east in refrigerated rail cars that were themselves a logistical innovation. One of those original Parent Washington Navel Orange trees, at the corner of Magnolia and Arlington, is still alive and protected by a low iron fence.

The Mission Inn, a sprawling Mission Revival building that grew from a boarding house into one of California's National Historic Landmarks, dominates the downtown.

Its mix of arches, courtyards, towers, and chapels accumulated over 30 years of expansion. The Fox Theater, a few blocks away on Mission Inn Avenue, screened 'Gone with the Wind' for its world premiere in 1939 -- a choice that reflected Riverside's ambition and proximity to Hollywood without quite being it. Mount Rubidoux, a rocky peak overlooking the Santa Ana River, hosts the oldest continuous outdoor Easter sunrise service in the United States, established in 1909 on a hilltop cross that is visible from much of the city.