 he people who move and shake society have made the Mission Inn a favorite haunt since it first opened its doors in 1903. Presidents, social leaders, entertainers, and other celebrities have all left their mark, making the Inn the center stage of Riverside’s public life for over a century.
Oil portraits of ten United States Presidents hang in the lobby of the hotel. The portraits, by Riverside artist Bonnie Brown, commemorate the Presidents who have visited the Inn during their lifetimes: Benjamin Harrison, William McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, Herbert Hoover, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, and George W. Bush.
Other political leaders and government officials who have graced the Inn include Crown Prince Gustavus Adolphusof Sweden, Japanese Prince and Princess Kaya, Grand Duke of Russia Alexander Milhailovich, and Vice Presidents Richard Cheney, Dan Quayle, and Charles W. Fairbanks(who served under Theodore Roosevelt ). The Inn has also welcomedSupreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Conner, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Congressman Newt Gingrich, L.A. Mayor Richard Riordan, and North Carolina Senator Elizabeth Dole.
The list of social leaders making stops to the Mission Inn includes Susan B. Anthony, one of the major forces in the ratification of the 19 th Amendment, which guaranteed women the vote. Industrialists Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, Collis and Henry Huntington,and Henry Ford, and scientist and social commentator Albert Einstein all appear on the list of visiting social leaders. Newspaper magnates Joseph Pulitzerand William Randolph Hearst, pioneering historian Hubert H. Bancroft, publisher Harry Chandler, civil rights advocate Booker T. Washington, crusading journalists Ida Tarbelland Charles F. Lummis, disabilities advocate Helen Keller, and Sierra Club founder John Muir have also visited the Inn.
A complete list of entertainers who have toured the Inn is similarly exhaustive. Lillian Russell, Sarah Bernhardt and Harry Houdini were early visitors to Frank Miller’s hotel. Other guests have included actors such as Drew Barrymore, Ethel Barrymore, Charles Boyer, James Brolin, Eddie Cantor, James Coco, Bette Davis, W. C. Fields, Clark Gable, Cary Grant, Fess Parker, Mary Pickford, Ginger Rogers, Barbara Streisand, Spencer Tracy, and Raquel Welch, and comedians and musical entertainers such as Jack Benny, Glen Campbell, Bob Hope, Merle Haggard, The Osbournes, and Tears for Fears.
It is no exaggeration to characterize the Mission Inn as a magnet for “movers and shakers,” an important nexus for social and cultural change on the local, national and international level.
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Movers and Shakers
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