One orange tree helped put Riverside on the citrus map

Riverside’s orange story starts small. In 1873, two young Washington navel orange trees were sent to Eliza Tibbets. One parent tree survived, and its fruit helped change Southern California farming.

The tree mattered because the fruit was seedless, sweet, and easy to ship. Growers could take buds from the parent tree and start more trees. From there, Riverside’s citrus world grew into groves, packing houses, rail shipments, irrigation work, and the orange-crate image people still connect with the region.

That is the neat part. A tree on a corner can look modest. This one points to a whole economy and a whole look for inland Southern California, from green groves to winter orange harvests.

If you visit, treat it like a living landmark, not a museum piece behind glass. California history is sometimes a building, sometimes a trail, and sometimes one tree that worked out very well.