Presidents, Activists,

Celebrities… Oh My!

Movers and Shakers at Riverside’s Mission Inn

When the Mission Inn first opened in 1885, it was known as the Glenwood

Hotel. It became the Mission Inn in 1903.

Throughout the more than 100 year history of the hotel, many famous guests called the hotel home during visits to

Riverside.

President Roosevelt replanting one of Riverside’s Naval Orange

trees in 1903.

President William Howard Taft and his chair. The “Taft Chair” is still on display in the Mission

Inn lobby.

John F Kennedy attended a Peace Conference at the Mission Inn in 1940

while he was a college student.

Ronald and Nancy Reagan spent their

honeymoon at the Inn in 1952.

Richard and Patricia Nixon were married in

the Presidential lounge in 1940.

Famous scientists and inventors like Albert Einstein and Henry

Ford visited the hotel in the early 1900s.

Social reformers like Booker T. Washington and Susan B. Anthony visited the hotel in

its early years.

Booker T. Washington stayed at the Mission Inn in 1914.

Susan B. Anthony stayed at the hotel in 1895 when it was

still called the Glenwood Hotel.

Many more notable figures including John Muir, the

founder of the Sierra Club, and Helen Keller, a political activist and

disabilities advocate, have also visited the hotel.