The beginning of a new year is a good time to look back, often to the previous year. In Exploring Riverside’s Past, we will look back not one year, but 100 years to 1925. A newspaper article on Jan. 1, 1926, declared “Riverside is Growing.” For the third year in a row, the city issued building permits totaling more than $2 million. For 1925, the total was $2,261,227. By today’s standards, that does not seem high, as some homes and most commercial buildings easily exceed that amount on a single project. Most of the construction was for new homes, but several significant commercial buildings were erected in 1925. We will examine four of them.
The Security Investment Company was incorporated in Riverside in 1912. When their offices at 667 Eighth St. (today 3667 University) were no longer large enough, they looked to G. Stanley Wilson to design a new home office at the southwest corner of Main and Tenth streets. Designed to complement the 1903 Riverside County Courthouse, across the street from the site, the design has been described as Beaux-Arts. Many believe that the design was drawn by Peter J. Weber, who worked for Wilson. The Cresmer Manufacturing Company of Riverside had the contract to build the edifice.
Actual work began in November 1924 and continued into 1925. The structure was 40 feet wide along Main Street and ran back 158 feet along Tenth. The cost of the building was estimated at $70,000. Reports of the day called it one of the most striking from the standpoint of architecture, convenience and civic appeal…