The story behind Magnolia Avenue's grand design, its presidential cross streets and the settlers who made it Southern California's most celebrated boulevard.
The free morning clinic that shaped a generation of Inland Empire athletes will shut its doors June 15, ending a nearly half-century run that transformed sports medicine across the region.
Decorated caps fill the floor of California Baptist University's Dale E. and Sarah Ann Fowler Events Center as 1,901 graduates were honored over five commencement ceremonies during the final week of April. (Emily Ma) Have a photo that captures the spirit of Riverside? Share it with us and help celebrate the beauty of our community!
Sunday Gazette: May 3, 2026
Hello Riverside, and Happy Sunday! It's been a whiplash few weeks at City Hall, and my inbox and phone have reflected it. A lot of you reached out after my name appeared in a Facebook post connected to the city manager story earlier this week; I get why that was confusing. Others have accused the Gazette of taking sides — some say we're shielding the people involved, others say we're abandoning them by not airing every grievance. Both can't be true, and neither is.
So let me be clear: I'm not on any side in this dispute.
Sides are something you stand on. Neighbors are people you stand with.
That's the posture I'm trying to hold. I hope it's contagious.
I stand with and for Riverside.
I launched the Gazette in 2020 because I love this city and I believed Riverside deserved a newsroom that covered it with care, with curiosity, and in the spirit of neighborliness. That mission hasn't changed, and it isn't going to.
That's why our job is to publish what we can verify, fairly and on the record — and to leave the rest where it belongs.
There are good people all over this story, on every side of it, and I count all of them as my neighbors.
Thank you for reading, thank you for caring, and thank you for being neighbors.
🧡
Thank you to the Subscribers who became paid supporters this week: Jim Clover, Nancy Olsen, Patricia Reynolds, and Susan Wilson. Your ongoing financial support is vital to our success in serving Riverside with the news it deserves!
The story behind Magnolia Avenue's grand design, its presidential cross streets and the settlers who made it Southern California's most celebrated boulevard.
Postcard of Trolley Stopping at Business District of Arlington. (Author's Collection)
With Samuel C. Evans, Sr.'s arrival in 1874, the landscape and size of Riverside changed. With other investors, including William T. Sayward, Evans purchased land south of what is now Arlington Avenue. Needing water, the new syndicate sought help from John W. North and the Southern California Colony Association. North was opposed, so Evans and company formed the Riverside Land and Irrigation Company. They purchased a controlling interest in the Southern California Colony Association and built the Upper Canal to bring water to their new development. They formed the Riverside Land Co. to market the properties to new settlers. This brief, simplified overview of the land associations in the 1870s lays the groundwork for the main topic, Magnolia Avenue.
William T. Sayward envisioned a long avenue, Bloomingdale Avenue, cutting through the property, extending from the base of the Temescal Mountains all the way to San Bernardino. His grandiose idea did not materialize due to the cost and difficulty of obtaining the land for the right-of-way. He had to settle for a grand avenue extending through the property of the Riverside Land and Irrigation Company.
With Samuel Evans back in Fort Wayne, Indiana, in 1875, the management of the Riverside Land and Irrigation Company fell to Evans' brother-in-law, Henry J. Rudisill. Rudisill was responsible for laying out the plans for Magnolia Avenue and the streets connected to it. His wife, Elizabeth Evans Rudisill, suggested the name "Magnolia." The original plan was to plant Magnolia trees along the avenue. However, their high cost and water requirements prevented this. Magnolias were planted at the intersections of the avenues with the Presidential streets, where irrigation ditches supplied the required water.
After 45 Years, the SPORT Clinic Is Closing, But Jim Clover's Legacy Isn't Going Anywhere
The free morning clinic that shaped a generation of Inland Empire athletes will shut its doors June 15, ending a nearly half-century run that transformed sports medicine across the region.
Dr. Jim Clover stands inside the SPORT Clinic, which will close June 15 after 45 years of free sports medicine care for Inland Empire student-athletes. (Brenda Flowers)
"I honestly don't know if there is a way to accurately express the tremendous impact Jim Clover has had on Riverside as a whole and especially his impact on the world of local youth and high school athletics," said John Corona, a retired track coach and teacher in Riverside Unified School District and Riverside Sports Hall of Fame board member. "In the last 45 years, he has changed just about everything in the realm of athletic training, preventive care and rehabilitation of athletes. His students and mentees populate just about every school in Riverside County."
Tony Masi, a retired athletic director in RUSD and Riverside Sports Hall of Fame honoree, put it more directly: "He is a unicorn and the GOAT all in one."
"Jim is our pioneer and is the reason so many schools within the IE have athletic trainers at all," said Cassie Vergara, an athletic trainer with Clover Enterprises Inc., the company that partnered with Riverside Medical Clinic to operate the SPORT Clinic. "I've met practitioners in the high desert who have fondly referred to our area as 'Cloverland,' knowing of Jim's precedence."
Season Tickets on Sale for A CBU Christmas and CBU's 2026-27 Theater Lineup
"Clue," "Oklahoma!" and the ninth annual A CBU Christmas anchor a five-show season. Packages start at $67.
Students perform the "Topsy Turvy" number from "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" during California Baptist University's April 2024 production at the Wallace Theatre.
Tickets are selling fast for California Baptist University's 2026-27 theater season. CBU has earned a reputation in the Riverside community for annual traditions like A CBU Christmas and fresh theater productions, and audiences are already snatching up spots for next year's performances.
Season ticket packages begin at $67, less than $14 per show.
The 2026-27 theater season includes two plays and two musicals along with A CBU Christmas, a fan favorite that has become an annual tradition for many Riverside families. Performance dates for each are:
"Clue": Oct. 9, 10, 16, 17 and 18
"James and the Giant Peach": Nov. 13, 14, 20, 21 and 22
A CBU Christmas: Dec. 5 and 6
"These Shining Lives": Feb. 19, 20, 26, 27 and 28
"Rodgers and Hammerstein's Oklahoma!": April 9, 10, 16, 17 and 18
A CBU Christmas, a musical and theatrical presentation about the birth of Jesus, brings together the entire Collinsworth School of Performing Arts. Entering its ninth year, the production has become one of the most anticipated holiday performances in the Inland Empire. More than 15,000 people attended the 2025 performances, with sold-out shows over two days. CBU projects the 2026 shows will sell out, too.
This week, we’re moving from ways we filter things out of our food to ways that we get food into our mouths. Our creative nudge? An empty chip bag.
Yes, the crinkly, colorful, mostly air-filled vessel that once delivered your daily salt intake in a single serving. Not just any chip bag—all chip bags. Crinkled foil pouches, glossy plastic sleeves, family-size, fun-size, gas station impulse buys, and yes, even the cylindrical optimism of a Pringles can. If it once delivered chips into your life, it qualifies. I’ve finished a bowl of sea salt kettle chips and pretzel twists while finishing this column as a meta reflection on snack foods and creativity. Which means I now have two bags to play around with!
I picked this for our nudge because I can’t stop finding them. Side of the road, under bushes, tangled in fences, fluttering like accidental flags of the snack economy. I’ve used hundreds in my assemblage work—once weaving them into a kind of cornucopia using chicken wire. Bright reds, radioactive greens, electric blues, an endless wheel of eye-catching colors designed to stand out on a snack rack.
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