Charles Loring: From Minneapolis to Mount Rubidoux

Anyone who has spent much time in Minnesota during winter realizes why Charles M. Loring began to spend his winters in the climate of Riverside in Southern California. One of my daughters told me that fact on a hike up Mt. Rubidoux when we came to the Loring Tablet and talked about Loring being from Minneapolis. She had spent four years of college in Minnesota and later moved to Minneapolis. While she lived in Minneapolis, we talked by phone one winter day. On that day, she was shivering in minus twenty degrees cold while I was enjoying a day in Riverside when we had a balmy eighty degrees. Loring first visited Riverside in the winter of 1885 to visit his friend and former pastor, the Reverend George Deere of the First Universalist Society. After fifty-two years of living in cold climates, Loring was ready for a change during the winter season.

Charles Loring was born on November 13, 1832, in Portland, Maine, to Captain Horace Loring and his wife, Sarah. His father took the young boy on sea voyages, making him a mate on his ship.   However, sea life was not for Charles. 

In 1856, they moved to Chicago, where Charles partnered with B. P. Hutchinson, a wheat speculator. After four years in Chicago, Loring moved his family further west to Minneapolis. In Minneapolis, he first became a supply store manager before joining a friend, Loren Fletcher, in forming a general merchandise business. In 1868, the partners ventured into the flour milling business, buying up several mills. 

Charles Loring became active in several civic organizations in Minneapolis. He was president of the Minneapolis Board of Trade in 1875. He served on the Minneapolis Chamber of Commerce from 1886 to 1890.  When the first members of the Minneapolis Board of Park Commissioners were selected, he was elected president of the commission. He held this position until 1890. He became known as the Father of Parks in Minneapolis.  When the Minneapolis, Sault Ste. Marie and Atlantic Railway (later known more simply as the Soo Line) was incorporated in September of 1883; one of the original stockholders was C. M. Loring.  

This is the man who, beginning in 1885, began to spend his winters in sunny California, staying at the Glenwood Hotel in Riverside. Although only a resident for a few months each year, Loring soon became active in his adopted city. He stayed each year at the Glenwood Mission Inn, where he became a very close friend of Frank Miller.

After the Citrus Fair Pavilion burned down in April of 1888, Charles Loring proposed building a three-story building for offices, an opera house, the library, a fire station, and a police station.  The city agreed to a ten-year lease for the city's uses. Charles Loring was the largest stockholder, so the building was named the Loring Building and the Loring Opera House. The Loring Building remains across the mall from the Mission Inn on the corner of Main and Seventh (now Mission Inn Avenue), although the Opera House portion burned down in October 1990.

It is not surprising that Charles Loring was among the founding members when the Huntington Park Association was incorporated in January 1906 to build a road up Mount Rubidoux and develop the area. The other founding members were Frank Miller, Henry Huntington, John Reed, Cornelius Rumsey, George Reynolds, and Gaylor Rouse. 

Over the coming years, Loring was involved in several occurrences connected with Mount Rubidoux. In June of that year, he gave a right of way over the property he had bought on which he proposed building a home.

Loring never built a home on this property. In 1917, Mrs. Loring sold the land to Frank Miller for two dollars, understanding that either an educational institution would be built there or the land would be given to the city for a public park. In 1933, Miller sold this small property to the city to establish Loring Park. This hidden park area is unknown to many residents. In 2020, Riverside Public Utilities erected a new Booster Station in Loring Park to better service the water needs of the nearby neighborhoods.

The new road, Huntington Drive, which began as it went over the newly constructed bridge next to the Loring property, was completed in early 1907. On February 22, a dedication ceremony was held at Fort Chittenden near the top of the mountain. The main speaker for this ceremony was the social reformer Jacob Riis. The master of ceremonies for this occasion was Charles Loring.  At the end of the ceremonies, after Riis had called for three cheers for the flag and for President Roosevelt, Loring called for three cheers for Riis and then for Frank Miller.

“Making Beautiful Rubidoux Mountain” was the headline of an article in the Riverside Daily Press on March 7, 1908.  The reporter was given a tour of the mountain that morning by Loring, who was usually there each day personally directing the planting and caring for the many trees and shrubs on and around the mountain. After receiving this tour and having the many plants and their locations described to him, he summarized:

Thus, Rubidoux mountain is gradually growing trees from a once useless, unattractive, barren waste into what will eventually be one of the most beautiful show places of the southland, dotted with handsome residences and covered from base to summit without destroying the native ruggedness, with evergreen trees, shrubs, and flowering plants (Daily Press, March 7, 1908).

The Landmarks Club held its spring conference at the Mission Inn in early June 1916.  They, along with many Riversiders and other dignitaries, were invited to one of Frank Miller’s special dedication ceremonies – the dedication of the St. Francis Fountain at the western base of Mount Rubidoux. Mayor Oscar Ford introduced the first speaker for this event, “the venerable C. M. Loring, through whose efforts and generosity the fountain was made possible.”  Loring praised the work of the Audubon Society and the Humane Society, who also contributed funds for the fountain.  The fountain was built as a sanctuary for birds and thus dedicated to St. Francis, a bird and animal lover. The fountain was designed by Los Angeles artist F. Scotti, who also created one for Loring for a park in Minneapolis.

In the spring of 1916, some of Loring’s friends came up with the idea of “Loring Arbor Day” on Mt. Rubidoux to remember all the trees on the mountain for which Loring was responsible. In appreciation, the group planted a St. John’s Bread tree in his name near the crossing of the up-and-down road on the east side of the mountain.

Charles Loring’s health declined; in 1919, it was reported that he could not make his annual trip to Riverside.  Yet Riverside did not forget him. In November of that year, the Chamber of Commerce passed a resolution: Honoring C. M. Loring, a staunch friend of Riverside for a score of years, “Loring Committee on Beautification” was created by the directors of the chamber of commerce…”

On Saturday, March 18, 1922, Charles M. Loring, after lingering health issues, died at his home in Minneapolis. Before his death, Loring chose eight pallbearers for his funeral, eight men who had served with him on the Minneapolis Park Commission in his efforts to beautify that city.

In April of 1923, the people of Riverside showed their gratitude to Charles Loring, the Minneapolis businessman who had made Riverside his second home.  On what had been declared Loring Arbor Day, April 18, on the slopes of Mount Rubidoux, which he had loved so well, a bronze table was unveiled. The tablet was a gift from Mrs. Loring in honor of her husband. H. A. Hammond, the president of the local Humane Society, oversaw the ceremonies. The address was given by the noted actor Frederick Warde, a friend of Loring’s, and the tablet was unveiled by Frank Miller Hutchings, the grandson of Frank Miller. The tablet reads:

IN HONOR OF CHARLES M. LORING
TREE LOVER AND CIVIC ENTHUSIAST
LET DEAD NAMES BE EXTERNALIZED BY DEAD STONE
LET LIVING NAMES BY LIVING SHAFTS BE KNOWN
PLANT THOU A TREE WHOSE GRIEFLESS LEAVES SHALL SING
THY DEED AND THEE EACH FRESH UNFOLDING SPRING

Riverside remembers Charles Loring, an early winter visitor and benefactor to the city and the community—one of many who found our winter climate so much better.