Local Retailer

The Riversider | August/September 2021

WORDS: AARON SCHMIDT

First opened as Skip Fordyce Harley-Davidson way back in 1941, this motorcycle shop is a bona fide community staple, where countless devoted Riversiders have purchased their bikes and accessories for the last 80 years. The original dealership was located downtown, and it’s moved a few times over the years—but it’s always been in Riverside. The Dabney family bought the dealership in the early 1970s, and would eventually move it to its current location on Indiana Avenue. The family owned it until 2013, when current owner Mike Veracka bought the dealership on Halloween of that year and renamed it “Riverside Harley-Davidson.” The dealership has gone through some major changes since Veracka took over eight years ago. “There’s been a ton of changes. Mike just invigorated the Harley-Davidson industry in Southern California. Right off the bat, he made a massive investment in our inventory. He literally quadrupled it here at the store, and he also more than doubled the size of our personnel. We were roughly 50 employees at the time he purchased it, and now we’re at 98 employees,” said Glen Espinoza, Riverside Harley-Davidson general manager. Veracka’s influence helped catapult Riverside Harley-Davidson into literally the best dealership— not just here in the United States—in the entire world. “Mike had everything to do with it. Riverside Harley-Davidson is actually the number-one volume sales dealer in the world. That was true for 2019, 2020, and knock on wood—we’re running numberone this year as well,” explained Espinoza. “There’s a few dealers out there nipping at our heels, but we’re still number one in the world, so we expect to finish strong for the year.” A full service dealership, Riverside HarleyDavidson is literally a “one-stop shop” for all your Harley needs, and it’s the biggest in Southern California—hands down. With over 250 new and used motorcycles on the floor at any given time in their showroom, they also have the biggest and best team on site to be able to handle that massive

The dedicated sales team at Riverside Harley-Davidson.

inventory of bikes, parts, and accessories—all while servicing customers and tending to their every need. “Riverside Harley-Davidson is an experience. It’s a family—a brotherhood and sisterhood. A community. We truly work 100-percent with that mission in mind. Our employees are empowered to have this mission, and that’s to fulfill dreams by delivering a premium customer experience—creating customers for life. There’re a lot of nice Harley dealerships around the country with nice buildings and beautiful bikes, but what separates us from other Harley dealerships is the people inside,” said Espinoza. “Our team is just so dedicated and devoted to the Harley-Davidson brand, and it’s filled with local guys and girls from all over the Riverside area. That’s the beauty of our business— we’re able to fill an entire dealership with people that are passionate about it.” When it comes to bike maintenance, Riverside Harley-Davidson has a full service shop with ten technicians—five of them being master rated. “A lot of shops don’t have any at all, so we’ve very fortunate to have that caliber of people serving our Riverside community,” said Espinoza. “We also have a full service riding academy program that features a ‘learn to ride’ course. It’s a really awesome course. I’d challenge anyone to go and take that course, and then tell me they didn’t become a better rider and learn a ton in doing so. Just from a safety standpoint— it’s a huge benefit. We have a beginner’s, intermediate, and advanced courses. It’s really valuable for all riders to be a part of.” The thing that sets Riverside Harley-Davidson apart from other dealerships is knowledge and understanding. Buying a bike is just the beginning of your journey into the Harley-Davidson world. Next, you’ll want to customize your bike—personalize it and make it all your own—entering yourself into a brand-new lifestyle. “Harley-Davidson is a lifestyle. We put on literally over a 100 events a year. Twice a month, we have customer appreciation day—‘open houses’ is what we call them, and we serve free food to the community,” said Espinoza. “We invite everybody to come down, hang out, and take part in it—even if you don’t have a bike.” Riverside Harley-Davidson hosts Bike Nights every other Thursday from 5:00 to 9:00pm during the season, featuring local bands and DJs, local vendors, and the ever-popular Bikini Bike Wash. Riverside Harley-Davidson is also deeply committed to the local community of Riverside, and supports a number of local charities. “The first and foremost charity that we put most of our time, energy, and dedication to is the West Coast Thunder. It’s a Memorial Day bike run designed to raise money in support of the Riverside National Cemetery. A little known fact is that it’s one of the largest veteran cemeteries in the US,” explained Espinoza. “This dealership has been doing it for a long time.” West Coast Thunder is the largest single-day ride west of the Mississippi—it’s basically a parade that ends at a destination with a big benefit concert. “All the funds we raise are then donated to the Riverside National Cemetery. We were on our twentieth year of doing it and then COVID hit, so we’re planning on doing it in 2022 now,” said Espinoza. What’s next for Riverside Harley-Davidson? The future looks bright. “We’ve almost outgrown our building, so Mike is investing heavily in expanding our facility. We’ve secured some property adjacent to our building, and we’re working with our partners at the City,” said Espinoza. “We’re adding a ton of parking and space to the building, so we can have more inventory, and bigger parties and events for the community to come and join us. We think we’ll be done with it by the end of the year—that’s our goal. When it’s completed, we’re going to throw a giant party and invite the whole community.” “Community is key to everything we do.”

Riverside Harley-Davidson 7688 Indiana Avenue (833) 743-0518 riversideharley.com @riversideharley

Recently Sold by Andrew

“Andrew connected us with a qualified buyer on the first day of listing and we had an offer the first weekend. The offer was over our asking price. We couldn’t be more pleased. Andrew is knowledgeable about working with older homes and finding buyers who are interested in them. He was always available to us and helped us throughout the process.”

Riverside has an impressive inventory of historic real estate from late 19th Century Farmhouses to Mid-Century masterpieces. If you have a vintage home and it’s time to sell or have always dreamed of owning one, give us a call, we are happily at your service.

The Riversider | August/September 2021

WORDS: H. VINCENT MOSES, PHD

Matthew Gage (in buggy at top of photo) and William Irving, Chief Engineer (with beard at right), survey progress at the Gage Canal’s original Artesian Headworks, circa 1886. The simple insertion of 16-inch pipes in the ground instantly drew the artesian flow to the surface. Easy access to an abundance of water in this previously untapped artesian basin, Santa Ana Riverbed, San Bernardino County made the Gage Canal possible and an immediate success. Courtesy, Museum of Riverside

The Riversider | August/September 2021

Flume No. 9, Gage Canal, replaced later in the twentieth century with a concrete inverted syphon. Photos courtesy, Gage Canal Company

Named for its builder, Matthew Gage, Riverside’s historic Gage Canal is most notable today as one of the region’s best running trails, and as a popular equestrian site. That was not the case at the turn of the twentieth century. By 1900, Riverside was world famous as the capital of the Navel Orange Empire, and the Gage Canal had enabled the cultivation of an additional 12,000 acres. Through its construction, it had opened to planting the otherwise barren grazed-over acreage on Riverside’s tablelands to the east and southeast of town.

By 1902, slightly more than a decade after its completion, the Gage Canal system was an international legend, and the model for irrigation works throughout the American West. The brand-new Bureau of Reclamation and the powerful Unites States Department of Agriculture considered Riverside’s Gage Canal the best water distribution system in the United States. Visitors came from around the world specifically to tour the 21-mile-long canal and learn from its Canadian engineers and builders. On their arrival, they found that the Canal had turned High Grove and the Arlington Heights tracts from barren desert land to lucrative with scenic navel orange groves as far as their eyes could see.

Matthew Gage, canal builder.

Chinese laborers excavating upper canal channel under the watchful eye of Robert Gage, Supervisor of Construction, circa 1886. William Irving, Chief Engineer.

On the way to Arlington Heights, the Canal would soon supply the expanded Citrus Experiment Station of the University of California, and after 1954, the campus of the University of California, Riverside with all the water it’d need to ensure its success. Yet in 1916, Matthew Gage—the man who conceived and built the Canal—died almost penniless. This is the story of his canal, its Canadian engineers, the British syndicate that assumed control in 1891 through tough legal, albeit dubious means, and its eventual takeover by the City of Riverside Public Utility in 1965. Foremost, however, this is the heroic and tragic tale of Matthew Gage, the Canal builder. Gage and his wife came to Riverside in 1881 from Kingston Ontario, Canada at the height of the early Washington navel orange boom. He saw immediately that an additional irrigation canal on the highlands east of town could open thousands of acres to citrus on undeveloped tablelands. Gage was a jeweler by trade, but that didn’t stop him. His brother Robert was a professional engineer for the Canadian Railroad, and Gage knew William Irving— another noted engineer from Kingston Ontario, Canada. He had also met Captain C. C. Miller—a practicing engineer in early Riverside, and father of the later Master of the Mission Inn, Frank Miller. By 1885, Gage had secured loans to purchase 2,800 acres of land north of High Grove atop the artesian basin in the Santa Ana River bottom. He had also acquired 6/7th of the Hunt-Cooley Ditch as an initial delivery system to the head works of his canal. At this point, Gage hired Miller to design and engineer the first phase of the canal, brining Robert Gage to Riverside to supervise construction. Irving came later to complete the engineering of the final phase, and eventually stayed on as chief engineer and general manager of the operations. Construction of the canal took serious and complicated engineering. It required drilling tunnels, putting up wooden flumes high over arroyos, plus ridiculously hard manual labor. The skilled work included Scottish Canadian stone cutters and masons, Irish Canadian and American teamsters, and hundreds of former Chinese railroad workers to do the hard digging and hauling of dirt, rocks, and boulders. It also took African American laborers skilled in the use of the mule-drawn Fresno

The Riversider | August/September 2021

Courtesy, Gage Canal Company.

Scraper—the best non-steam-driven earth-moving tool of the era. By 1889, Gage was deeply in debt, beholden to creditors for up to $1.3 million. Desperate for debt relief, and to find the last funds to finally complete his dream, Gage travelled to London where he met with Edwin Waterhouse, Senior managing Partner of the Price-Waterhouse Company. There he struck a deal to sell all his water rights, canal, and Arlington Heights property to the company. In turn, he was to receive $168,000 and 800 shares of preferred stock in the newly formed Riverside Trust Company, LTD, plus $38,000 pounds sterling per year from the company profits. On November 5th, 1890, The Riverside Trust formed the Gage Canal Company to manage the canal works and distribution of water. Gage thought the British would develop Arlington Heights for housing at great profit, but they opted for citrus production instead. Gage sued in 1894 for failure to pay his share of the profits as agreed upon in the initial deal. The Brits countered that the Trust company had not make any profits and did not owe him his share. Gage lost the suit and died virtually penniless in 1916. It took grit and know-how to build the Canal early on to maintain its integrity. On the afternoon of September 21, 1925, John Mylne, Sr., General Manager of the Gage Canal Company received an alert: The Temescal Water Company had received temporary permission to run its water through The Gage Canal. It planned to open its Weir Box that night to begin running Temescal water permanently through the Gage down to Corona’s citrus groves. Mylne swung into action, and called James Sheddon (manager of the Gage Headgate and Victoria Camp),

Aerial view of the Gage Canal and surrounds, 2021.

and instructed him to take a truckload of cement, sand, and a crew to plug the Weir Box. They worked overnight to complete the job, thwarting the sudden move by Temescal. The two companies later struck a negotiated deal allowing Temescal to wheel water through Gage Canal to Corona. By 1959, the City of Riverside realized it needed additional domestic water supply for its growing population, and initiated a “friendly” condemnation of the Gage Canal system. Six years later, the City took ownership of the canal and all its water rights, with the Gage Canal Company remaining in charge of operations and maintenance, with the City as principal shareholder. Throughout its storied history, the Gage Canal Company has striven to improve the technology and capacity of the system to deliver the promised water supply to Riverside citizens and the evershrinking orange groves. It has dug deeper wells, installed turbine pumps, and replaced electric motors with natural gas engines. It has replaced leaky wooden flumes with concrete syphons to bring water across arroyos, and has covered a large portion of the canal to control evaporation and contamination. Today, the Gage Canal remains one of the wonders of Early Western American water engineering. Its existence made possible the establishment of California Citrus State Historic Park, providing water for the groves, and serving as one of the true onsite artifacts. The Canal carries Riverside’s fabled navel orange heritage in every drop of water it delivers, and speaks to the ingenuity of the engineers and visionary that built it. Among its many achievements, it sustains the beauty of Victoria Avenue, nourishes the University of California, Riverside Citrus Variety Collection, and campus landscape, and Citrus Park too. Finally, it helps guarantee the city a large volume of potable water for domestic consumption. The Gage remains a legend, and Riverside is better for it!

WORDS: AARON SCHMIDT  TINTYPE PHOTOGRAPHY BY CONRAD YOUNG

This is baseball in its earliest days—when the sport was young and pure. It should be noted that in the late 1800s, baseball was called “base ball.” A tough breed of individuals with rudimentary 19th century equipment, these players—or ballists as they were known—helped pioneer America’s national pastime into the sport it is today.

The Riverside Smudge Pots are a local vintage 1886 base ball club that uses 19th century rules, replica uniforms, and equipment. Formed in 2018, they’re the reigning 2019 champions of the Southern California Vintage Base Ball league. Named after an oil-burning device used to prevent frost on fruit trees, the “smudge pot” has become synonymous with Riverside’s rich citrus history.

This past July, the team’s 2021 SCVBB season opening game against the Palmdale Blue Stockings was held at the CSDR baseball park on Horace Street. After a touching tribute to a fallen teammate at the start, the Smudge Pots went on to become victorious over Palmdale—completely annihilating them (21-1) in the hot sun at the ball park that Saturday.

We’re a vintage baseball club, and we play 1886 Spalding rules “base ball.” We started in 2018, and had our first season in 2019. In the beginning, I called people to recruit them—begging everyone that I ever knew that played baseball with in high school or growing up—just trying to get them to buy into the idea to play.

When I first started the team, a friend and I were passing names back and forth. In the league, it’s encouraged that you connect your team name to the city. So we passed around names like, “Riverside Citrus,” or “Riverside this,” or “Riverside that.” I always thought the “smudge pot” name was kind of quirky, but it ties into Riverside’s citrus history and it incorporates what we do as a team.

That’s awesome! Thanks! Riverside did have a baseball team in that same time period, but it was called the Riverside Base Ball Club. It was really generic, so we took the liberty to make the name of our team a little more appealing and quirky.

We have fifteen, and the league only allows fifteen roster spots. We bat all fifteen, and then we just switch people out. I want to get everyone in the game and let them play. Players pay league dues and all the money for their uniforms. Right now, I’m getting DM’s asking how to join the team and tryout, and I’m like, “Where were you before?” If we have an open spot and someone wants to come try out, we’ll give them a go, but it’s usually just a “friend of a friend” that wants to play.

How did you get the nickname “The Curator?” For starting the team, and I’m also passionate about collecting stuff like memorabilia and things like that. My friend John gave me that name before we started the team. I do all the set up and bring

A bloody nose from a crazy pitch couldn't stop Chris "The Curator" Johnson as he rounds the bases for another ace.

all the items for our games—like the mercantile stand and products we sell. I’m always doing that and that’s how I got the name.

It began in 2017 and was started by Wes Abarca— the founder of the Crestline Highlanders team. He started that team, and then they played a team from the Northern California league. After that, he then got a few other teams interested, with the Redondo Beach Wharf Rats being the second team he grabbed next. It was then a four-team league, and I had heard about it through an ex co-worker at the Mission Inn. Her husband was on the Highlanders, and she posted something about the game. I was like, “Oh my gosh, I’ve been looking for something like this my whole life!” So I tried to join his team, but I didn’t really want to do the drive up there. He was like, “Why don’t you start your own team in Riverside?” Being a lifelong Riversider and someone who’s tied to history and baseball, I felt like everything aligned and I took it on. The hardest part was trying to recruit people and sell them on this different kind of idea.

How many other teams are in the league? Right now, we have nine teams: the Crestline Highlanders, Palmdale Blue Stockings, Riverside Smudge Pots, Redondo Beach Wharf Rats, Perris Prospectors, Arrowhead Loggers, Temecula Dear Bros, Lordsburg Trolleymen, and the Fullerton Fire Knockers. We started off with five teams for the first season, and now we’re getting inundated with every city that wants to start a club.

It’s called the Bay Area Vintage Base Ball league. They have about fifteen teams, and they’ve been around since the early 2000s. They play the same style of baseball as us, so it’s cool because if we wanted to travel we could go up there and play them using the same equipment and same rules. We could plug right in. There’s a league in Arizona that plays underhand, like 1860s rules, and our league went out there and played them in their style.

Yeah, it’s all overhand. The reason why we play 1886-style is because it’s the era where they transitioned to overhand pitching, and also to using gloves—but gloves are minimal.

How’s it different from modern baseball? Some of the main differences are the lack of equipment, and then also the equipment being a

ACES – Runs BALLER, BALLIST – Player BEHIND – Catcher BLIND, BLINDER – No score HURLER – Pitcher HUZZAH! – Cheer indicating enjoyment or approval BOUND – Bounce BOUNDER – A bouncing ball that doesn’t go out of the infield CAPITAL – The best, first rate. A spectacular catch is a “Capital Play” CAPTAIN – Manager CRANKS – Baseball fans DAISY CUTTER – A sharply hit ground ball GARDEN – Outfield GINGER – Determination, quick fierce play HAND – An out. “Three hands down” ends an inning MATCH, MATCH GAME – A game between two clubs, as opposed to intra-club games MUFF – A muffed ball is a missed catch or grounder MUFFIN – A muffin is a less talented player on a club. Also call a “scrub” PICKED NINE – An early type of all-star team. SAFETY – A safe hit SKY BALL – Pop up SHORT FIELD – An early name for the shortstop STRIKER – Batter “STRIKER TO THE LINE” – Batter up TALLY – To score a run, score UMPIRE – Sir

Chris “The Curator” Johnson (captain, third base) Tyler “The Traveler” Peacock (catcher) Rod “The Hydrator” Merritt (first base) Carlos “Popeye” Moreno (utility, catcher) Danny “The Mosher” Monroe (third base) Junior Avila (shortstop) Ruben Avila (second base) Bobby Burgess (left field) Franky Lane Salazar (centerfield) Carlos “The Looker” Arevalo (right field) Tylor “Boston” Schilling (Hurler) Victor “The Nomad” Solis (utility) Joseph Chavez (utility) Victor “The Designer” Gomez Daniel “The Dazzler” Favela (hurler, utility) John “Big Time” Magdaleno (first base, RIP)

little bit different when it comes to dimensions— the bat has to be 35 inches long and 40 ounces minimum. The catcher uses a glove that’s somewhat from that era, but the web’s cut out. It keeps pitchers from throwing too hard to the catcher. The catcher can’t wear a helmet, and they can’t wear shin guards, either. When it comes to a pitch count, foul balls do not count as strikes, and then to walk a batter, you have to throw seven balls instead of the traditional four. If a pitch hits you, you do not get your base—it only counts as a ball. During our opening game, I got hit in the face on the first pitch—it just hit me straight in the nose. It bled like crazy and I was kind of disoriented, but I didn’t get my base—I just had to go back up there and hit again.

Yep, he usually stands midfield behind the pitcher. Back in the 1880s, they called the umpire the “Sir” because the people that were allowed to umpire games were usually local judges, clergymen, or someone who had a solid reputation they trusted to officiate base ball games.

You’re right. When the pitcher receives the ball back, he has to be in that rectangular box when he pitches. But he can pitch anywhere in that box, so there’s not an actual pitching rubber. And it’s a one-step pitch—you can’t bring your leg up and wind back, so there’s no wind-up. As soon as the pitcher receives the ball back from the catcher, he can throw it again at any time. So if you’re a batter in the box and you look down or step out like you would in modern baseball, that guy can throw him a pitch and keep on going like that. One time, we had a guy on our team strike out in literally five seconds. Some teams have really perfected that. The “hidden ball trick” is encouraged, so you’ll see a lot of teams trying to pull that one.

I don’t believe that was a rule—we just play seven innings mainly due to people getting older and playing on weekends. Games would go three-plus hours if we went a full nine innings.

His name was John Magdaleno, and he co-founded the team with me and was one of my close friends. He actually passed away last February and we had a memorial game last spring for him. His stepson Joseph Chavez is actually playing on our team this year and has taken his place. It’s been a long time since we’ve played because of COVID, so it seemed kind of weird to get back and do it again.

We play eight games and then we have playoffs. Typically, it starts in March and then it’d be done by October. But this year, we started in July—just trying to get a season in with COVID is tough. We’re dealing with four or five different counties that teams are in with different ballparks and different high schools, so if it were all at one site it’d be easy to schedule and do. But with all the restrictions, it took a while to secure some of the dates. Beginning the season in July is not the norm, and next year we’re going to try to get back to that March schedule.

Yes, the intention is to go up north and play a “California Cup,” where our league’s champs would play the winner from the Bay Area. For our inaugural season, Lake Elsinore Storm let us play an all-star game before one of their games on a promo night. Fans got to the ballpark early to see us play, so that was really fun.

We always try to do local events. We did the Ice Cream Social at the Riverside Heritage House. We did a little batting clinic for kids and we signed autographs with a feather pen. The Brickwood sponsors us—Vince has been a huge supporter and always posts our stuff. We’re in their front window—they have a smudge pot and a sponsorship plaque in there. The Riverside Flower Club over on Magnolia is another sponsor and so is MADE— they’ve donated some cool items for our raffle and have always been supportive.

Huzzah! It means “hurrah” or “hooray.” It was part of their common vernacular back in the 1880s era. I think some guys just want to come out and play baseball and that’s it, but we want our players to use the old vocabulary. You’re an entertainer—it’s not just baseball.

Follow the team on Instagram @riversidesmudgepots. To learn more info about the league, rules, and games schedule, please visit scvbb.com

Growing up in Riverside, my family frequented the library. Once a week, we went to the Arlington Branch. I know now just how small it was, but I remember going west across Van Buren Boulevard and seeing the top of the Doric portico facing Magnolia Avenue and thinking there was something important about that building. Several times a year, we took the pilgrimage downtown to the Main Branch. Around the fountain, up the stairs and through the glass doors into the lobby—it was the beginning of an adventure. A kid could truly get lost down a hallway, in a deep corner, or in the boundless stacks. Upstairs, downstairs, countless books, and cozy nooks—there was a weight to that building. It, like the Arlington Branch, felt important. The building has since been repurposed as The Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art & Culture, as the Main Branch is now in a new building across Market Street. I watched it evolve from the remains of the old bus station to a concrete slab and rebar,

OPENING DAY PHOTOS BY ZACH CORDNER

Mayor Patricia Lock Dawson at the ribbon cutting during the opening ceremony on June 26th, 2021.

and finally into an ultra-modern glass and concrete structure. This building has no Doric portico. It does, however, have columns and arches—if you’re willing to blur your definitions a bit. The first impression is that the building is massive. It looks big as you drive by, but not nearly as big as it does when you’re standing by its side. It’s monumental—a concrete and glass sphinx. It’s a structure that demands attention. From the outside, this building shouts to be seen—it doesn’t blend in with the neighborhood, but from the inside it makes clear that it’s part of our city. You can see the Fox Theater and down Mission Inn Boulevard from one side, and Tio’s Tacos and Mount Rubidoux from the opposing window on the dozens of comfortable chairs perched on the window’s edge. It provides a place to watch downtown move (and charge your phone). It humbly uses the attention it gains to divert focus to the city from which it’s risen. There’s a lot going on in both design and activity, but the inornate architecture serves to calm. Not in the way we think of an old librarian shushing us with a finger to her mouth, but like the speechlessness of being somewhere important. As our culture changes and we consider the role of libraries as an institution, importance is a real issue. I asked the Director of the Riverside Public Library, Erin Christmas, her feelings about the role of public libraries in an era where information is so readily available. “Libraries have never been more important.

The Innovation Center has an Oculus Rift Virtual Reality station, 3D printers, and a sound recording booth. Children's Room with a 30-foot-high skylight.

As seen during COVID 19, community members truly missed the services the Library provides. Libraries offer a place in the community for everyone to gather, the latest information for the community to access, and all community members the opportunity to use technology. Children are able to come with their parents to learn early literacy skills to prepare them for Kindergarten, teens are able to learn about the latest technologies, and adults are able to find a quiet safe place to read and research,” explained Christmas. “There are free classes for all ages to attend including, storytimes, movie nights, writing groups, robotics classes, etc. Riverside Public Library has books, storytime kits, toys, iPads, and more available for the community to borrow. Additionally, the library provides an entire virtual library component that includes free digital resources for the community to use including eBooks and audiobooks, language learning, test preparation, encyclopedias, reference materials, and full text e-magazines. Truly it is no longer your grandparents’ library.” Ms. Christmas gave us a pretty solid defense of the institution and a long-enough list of things going on at the library that aren’t just reading books. What she said might be sufficient, but I saw some things while I was there that went beyond the stated functions of a modern library. It’s important in the

most densely populated area of Riverside that we set aside a sanctuary space for students who live in crowded homes to escape to a quiet table to do their homework. It’s important that there’s a free place for people to meet and have access to the technology that helps us communicate efficiently. I think we take for granted what it means to have access to information. It wasn’t too terribly long ago that public libraries were scarce, and that access to books and the benefits of that access were a privilege that very few shared. Physical books may have some real competition in the digital age, but the library can still serve to equalize information. Public libraries have always been essential institutions because they grant access to everyone. Libraries remain important in today’s society, and our new Main Branch library is beneficial to all of us and future generations of Riversiders to come.