On your left is the Riverside Public Library. The spectacular building you are looking at opened in 2021, but the story of this institution is rooted in pure survival.
Before the grand buildings and massive collections, the town's original library was just a modest set of volumes kept in the back of John Hamilton's drugstore. And on Sunday night, October 12, 1884... it faced the ultimate trial by fire.
A massive blaze broke out, tearing through downtown Riverside. As the flames spread, residents rushed to the scene. But they did not just stand by. They formed a desperate rescue effort, running toward the burning drugstore, grabbing armfuls of books, and stacking them right in the middle of Main Street to keep them safe from the inferno. It was a breathtaking display of civic resilience.
Once the smoke cleared, the rescued books were boxed up and passed around to various private homes across the city for safekeeping. They remained completely scattered. For a while, it seemed like the town's unified library was lost to chaos.
Enter Mary Montague Smith. A widow with a fierce dedication to literature, she stepped up to become the city's first official librarian, acting as the ultimate guardian of the books. She spent years painstakingly tracking down those surviving volumes from living rooms and attics all over Riverside. By June 1889, she had successfully gathered them back together to open the Riverside Public Library in two upstairs rooms of the Handy Building.
Consider what that means. The foundation of this vast library system was not built on simple convenience. It was built by everyday people pulling pages from a burning building, and one woman's relentless determination to piece that scattered knowledge back together.
Over the decades, the library grew aggressively. In 1901, the city secured a 20,000 dollar grant from Andrew Carnegie... which is nearly 700,000 dollars today... to build a stunning new library in the Mission Revival style, an architectural nod to early Spanish colonial missions. When that beloved building was controversially demolished in 1964 to make way for a modern, boxy structure, the public outrage was so fierce that it permanently ignited Riverside's historic preservation ethic, guaranteeing that future landmarks would be fiercely protected.
Today, the library continues its legacy of lifelong learning right here. By the way, if you want to explore inside, they are open Tuesday through Sunday starting at 10 AM, though they are closed on Mondays.
Our next stop is just a one minute walk away, where we will look at a church that directly inspired a famous Riverside icon. Let us head over to the First Church of Christ, Scientist.
