RIVERSIDE: Rialto to the north history column
BY HAL DURIAN
CORRESPONDENT
Published: 14 January 2012 04:01 PM
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One of the founders of Rialto, a Methodist Minister named A.F. Naftzer, lived in Riverside for a time, and it is likely, but not proven, that he modeled his principal north-south street after the Riverside avenues noted for their beauty.
Rialto was founded in 1911 and last November marked the city’s centennial. It is a bedroom community of 100,000 people. Many of its residents work in Riverside and have frequent contacts with it. The trip from downtown Rialto to downtown Riverside is a mere 10 miles which makes Rialto closer to downtown Riverside than Orangecrest, a section officially within the city of Riverside.
The latest UC Riverside Alumni Directory lists 222 graduates of UCR who live in Rialto. Similar connections between Riverside and Rialto exist in many areas, though Rialto is in San Bernardino County.
Rialto has been for much of its history a citrus community, though today there is only one orange grove left in the city. It is owned by John Anthony Adams who earned a PhD in soil science from Riverside’s UCR.
The Rialto Museum displays 48 different citrus packinghouse labels from the city’s past. My favorite is the one titled “Rialto Beauties.” Those are oranges described, not pretty girls.
Geographically, Rialto is favored by an abundant water supply. It is directly south of Lytle Creek, and Rialto was first provided water by an open ditch from the creek. Later a huge pipeline carried water to thirsty citizens and to the town’s orange groves.
Leaving Riverside on Main Street and heading north, one notes that Main Street becomes Riverside Avenue at the San Bernardino County line. The motorist crosses a wide, new bridge across railway yards and the 10 Freeway into Rialto, which calls itself “The Bridge City.”
There are two theories as to the origin of the city’s name. One holds that Rialto is a contraction of Rio Alto (High river) in Spanish. The second theory, favored by Richard McInnis of the Rialto Museum, is that the daughter of a wealthy early landowner toured Europe and visited Venice where she was fascinated with the Rialto Bridge, a bridge so old that Shakespeare mentioned it in his “Merchant of Venice.” Today a likeness of the Venice Rialto bridge is featured on the city seal of Rialto.
Rialto had no more than 3,000 residents in 1920. Like Riverside, Rialto grew rapidly with subdivisions replacing orange groves in the years after World War II.
Today Rialto’s biggest employer is either the local school district or the Toys ‘R Us warehouse, according to Richard McInnis. It remains essentially a bedroom community with its main street directed toward Riverside and named for Riverside.
You may contact Hal Durian at durian@uia.net.
Hal Durian
Riverside Recollections
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