Site of Old Rubidoux Grist Mill

Robidoux put up this mill on Rancho Jurupa in 1846 or 1847, the only one of its kind for a long way in any direction, and it meant the valley had stopped being purely a grazing range because somebody was growing wheat. The register calls him one of the first permanent American citizens in the valley. He arrived as a Mexican one, naturalised in New Mexico so that he could trade and hold land, and in 1848 the treaty changed his nationality without his moving. The mill site is a residential street.

What the plaque says

In 1846 the first grist mill in this region was built nearby by Louis Robidoux, owner of this section of Rancho Jurupa. The mill provided flour, a popular but scarce commodity, for settlers and American troops. The mill was washed away by a flood in 1862.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Mount Rubidoux — 1.1 mi
  The mountain all of Riverside walks — and the half-acre at the summit the city sold rather than go to court.
• Riverside Chinatown Site — 1.6 mi
  Riverside's second Chinatown — an empty lot on purpose, with eighty percent of it still underground.
• Harada House — 2.3 mi
  The 1884 cottage a Japanese American family bought in their children's names, and kept in court.
• Sherman Institute & the Sherman Indian Museum — 5.2 mi
  The federal Indian boarding school Riverside lobbied to get — still a school today, its 1902 building now a museum.

More markers nearby

• Site of Louis Rubidoux House — steps away
• Cornelius and Mercedes Jenson Ranch — 0.6 mi
• Mission Inn — 2.1 mi
• Harada House — 2.3 mi