This Halloween morning, as children prepare their costumes and neighbors ready their candy bowls, we pause to remember that Riverside’s history contains real tragedies more haunting than any fabricated fright.
The most shocking of these occurred on another October morning 97 years ago. On October 28, 1927, Henry Milliken, the 43-year-old proprietor of the Motor Inn, ended months of financial despair and mental anguish in the worst way imaginable. At 2 a.m., he shot his wife Catherine and their 11-year-old son George as they slept, then turned the gun on himself. A business partner sleeping nearby heard the shots and discovered the family—Catherine in her bed, George beneath his covers, and Henry collapsed at his son’s feet. The following Monday, the three were buried together at Olivewood Cemetery, their shared grave a permanent reminder of how mental illness and desperation can destroy entire families.
While October seems fitting for tragic tales, Riverside’s history shows that sudden death knows no season. On January 2, 1922, Lyman Van Winkle Brown took his oath as Riverside’s new mayor, praised as uniquely prepared to guide the city forward. Twelve hours later, he was dead. Returning from Los Angeles after seeing his daughter off to Berkeley, Brown encountered a disabled truck on Foothill Boulevard near Mountain Avenue. Forced to swerve by an oncoming car, he crashed into timber projecting from the truck’s rear, which crushed him instantly. His wife Theresa and teenage daughters Charlotte and Barbara were left to mourn a man who never got to serve a single full day as mayor…