Category Archives: Inland Empire
The Great Freeze of 1913
On this day, 5 January, in 1913, the economy of Redlands, CA, literally froze. Temperatures dropped to 10-15 F in some areas, representing some of the coldest nights ever measured. According to Time Magazine, practically the entire citrus crop, the basis of the local economy, was destroyed. The cold snap lasted for three days:
Icicles hung on the trees in most groves; many of the trees were completely defoliated. The losses of the citrus growers soon became an economic and social disaster for the entire town. In the years following the freeze, Redlands lost 2,000 people, and it was not until after World War I that building and neighborhood development started once again.
IE*: Inland Empire Population Growth
IE*: 1893 Anti-Chinese Riots in Redlands
Inland Empire history, such as it is, tends to have a boosterish, great men and dates, ever upward, back of the real estate guide flavor to it, so I was surprised to learn from the late great Carey McWilliams* that anti-Chinese riots, which swept the American West at the turn of the last century, reached our fair city:
IE*: Driving the Inland Empire, Crazy
How is it that highways can have personalities?
The I-10 in California changes character as it goes east from ocean. It’s a typical southern California multi-lane concrete freeway in Los Angeles that becomes something out of a Mad Max movie in the Inland Empire, especially around the Colton rail yards. By the time it reaches Yuciapa, it’s settled down again into a lanky western interstate.
No doubt that this personality can be defined by factors like traffic density, the physical landscape, the number of exits, development alongside the highway (either preceding it or because of it), and the condition of the actual road. But the people driving on the road play a big part, too, in defining its character.
Whatever the cause, it never ceases to amaze me that a highway can have a personality. Generalizing a bit, highways in the IE are insane.
I thought that New Jersey, where I grew up, was the last word in traffic until I moved to Boston. Even driving in Manhattan, which has a peculiar but clearly understood set of driving protocols, was better than Boston. Boston’s got bad, nasty, aggressive drivers and crummy roads. Nothing worse than Boston.
Then I moved to the Inland Empire.
Rather than try to convince you by anecdote, see this report on road rage by the Surface Transportation Policy Partnership. It’s out of date by now, but they measured deaths attributable to aggressive driving and the IE was the top-ranked metro area in the country.
It wasn’t even close; measured in deaths per 100,000 people, the Inland Empire scored 13.4 while second-ranked Tampa was at 9.5. New York City (including northern NJ) was 36th, with a score of 2.6, and Boston was 37th with 2.1. That is, drivers in the Inland Empire are six times more aggressive than Boston drivers.