Chemawa Park: Riverside’s Forgotten Playground

Most Riversiders are familiar with the Frank A. Miller Mount Rubidoux Memorial Park, with the scenic views from Huntington Drive (the road up and down the mountain), as thousands of walkers trek up Mt. Rubidoux almost daily. On December 14, 1905, the Huntington Park Association was formed to develop Mount Rubidoux into a beautiful park. Among the association members were Henry Huntington, Charles Loring, John Reed, Cornelius Rumsey, and Frank A. Miller.

However, many are unaware that Mt. Rubidoux was not Miller’s first park, which he developed. That honor belongs to Chemawa Park.

In 1887, the Riverside and Arlington Railway was incorporated, with Miller as one of the officers and manager of operations. By 1899, the R & A had electrified the line and expanded its operations. Looking for entertainment excursions, especially for his guests at the Glenwood Mission Inn, and to increase ridership on the Riverside and Arlington, the electric railway line purchased 23 acres on Magnolia Avenue between Monroe and Jackson Streets.

In the middle of December 1900, Miller posted wanted ads in the Riverside newspapers seeking bids on removing old seedling orange trees from the Street Railway Park grounds and looking to purchase a six or eight-room house to move to the park site for a gardener’s residence. Work on the new park officially started on March 28, 1901. Several directors and approximately forty guests rode a special streetcar to the site for a tree planting ceremony. George Frost, president of the Riverside and Arlington, welcomed the assembly. The Reverend E. F. Goff of the First Congregational Church offered a prayer for the occasion, followed by Mrs. Priestley Hall singing “My Native Land.” Two special trees were planted – a Deodar cedar by Mrs. Frank Miller and a Sequoia by Charles Loring.

A rough stone gateway was erected at the park's entrance. The grounds included a pavilion, a small lake, polo grounds, a half-mile track, a grandstand, and a clubhouse. There was also a small zoo with an aviary and monkeys, foxes, and other animals. Frank Miller claimed the aviary, with orange trees for the birds to perch, was the best in the state.

The Riverside Polo Club, organized in 1892 by Robert Bettner, met at several locations before moving to the new field at Railway Park in May 1901. The grandstand had been moved from the former Athletic Park on Fourth Street below North Hill. Will Rogers bragged that he played his first polo game on this field.

The Riverside and Arlington Railway erected a station in front of the park. The station was 14 by 48 feet, built of gum wood and thatched with palm leaves, giving it a rustic look. The streetcar line advertised free admission to the park, although there was a rider fee.

With the new park in operation, Frank Miller wanted an official name for this attraction. The newspapers called it Railway Park, Arlington Park, Glenwood Park, or Magnolia Ave. Park, but Miller wished a special name, favoring a Native American or Spanish nomenclature. In early 1903, Miller sent out postcards to friends for their choice of three names submitted to him: Chemawa, Bonita, and Whyah. The majority of the votes favored Chemawa.

The cornerstone for the Sherman Institute, the Native American boarding school that moved from Perris to Riverside, was laid on July 18, 1901. Frank Miller was one of the leading proponents for the school's move to Riverside. Sherman's grounds were adjacent to the railway park.

The late Tom Patterson, local historian and newspaper columnist, conjectured that the name “Chemawa” was chosen because some of the early teachers at Sherman transferred from Chemawa Indian School in Oregon. In her book on place names, Jane Gunther reports that an article in a publication of Chemawa Indian School credited Harwood Hall, superintendent of Sherman, as suggesting the name. As with several early Native American words, the meaning is unclear. Gunther reported two possibilities: “place of the willows” or “pleasant campsite of a gravelly beach.” By early 1902, the park owned by the Riverside and Arlington Railway was known as Chemawa Park.

Frank Miller, the great promoter, publicized the streetcar line and the new park to gain ridership. On February 22, 1902, on President George Washington’s birthday, he arranged a line of flags to extend from the beginning of the railway line at Sixth and Main Streets to the Arlington Depot on Magnolia Avenue. The flags flew throughout Chemawa Park and the polo grounds in honor of the first president.

A special baseball exhibition game was played at Chemawa Park on Monday, November 17, 1902. The local newspapers promoted the event between traveling players from the National and American League teams for days leading up to the event. Frank Miller notified the city power company of the event. He requested “an extra supply of juice” during the afternoon to handle the crowds expected to travel the streetcars to the game. One of the featured players was Sam Crawford, “one of the best-looking ball players in the business, and a large attendance of ladies is expected.”

Alas, the game did not live up to the beforehand hype. The next day's headline cried out, “Kindergarten Exhibition of Baseball.” There were so many errors that the reporter declared that the players seemed to delight in making them. The umpire became so tired of seeing “the ball slip through the greased fingers of the Americans” that he used any excuse to call the Nationals out. The final score was Nationals 11 and the Americans 2. Better played were the many polo matches held over the years at Chemawa and football games by the next-door Sherman Institute team.

Band concerts were held regularly in the pavilion at “Riverside’s Greatest Pleasure Ground,” where the Riverside Military Band often performed.

The zoo continued to grow, with an August 1902 ad promoting sixty-five animals and fifty varieties of birds. In the summer of 1903, a new bear pit was constructed for Romeo, Juliet, Klondike Pete, and a fourth unnamed bruin. The zoo did not remain at Chemawa, but in the spring of 1914, former Mayor S. C. Evans arranged with the Pacific Electric Railway Company to move it to Fairmount Park. Pacific Electric took control of the Riverside & Arlington in July 1907.

Another short-term event at Chemawa Park was the Riverside County Fair. Held at the park in October 1913, the fair featured carnival rides, horticultural and agricultural exhibits, motorcycle races, and other attractions and activities. In January 1914, the Riverside County Fair Association decided to purchase 41 ½ acres of land on the north side of Riverside from the Evans family for a new fairground. The site was along Crestmore Ave., just a short distance north of Fairmount Park, and in the fall of 1914, the fair moved to its new location.

The removal of the zoo in 1914 signaled that the Pacific Electric was ready to abandon the park, and a newspaper article stated the land was for sale. However, it did not sell, and during World War I, the city leased the land and used part of it for a wartime vegetable garden. After the war, Chemawa Park was purchased from the Pacific Electric by F. W. Matthiessen, a millionaire horseman and stockman from Oxnard, and Thomas Mangan, a well-known horseman. Mangan moved to Riverside to live and oversee the park and polo grounds upgrade with new stables, track, and clubhouse. The deal was brokered by Robert Lee Bettner, known as the father of polo on the Pacific coast.

In September 1925, Robert Bettner was again listed as the agent to sell the Chemawa Park property. This time, the buyer was the Riverside Board of Education, which purchased the property as a site for a new middle school. Chemawa Park, the playground for all ages envisioned and built by Frank Miller, became a site for youth education, serving the city in a different capacity.