The "Gage" Canal....Riverside Ca... Landscape Artwork by David Carl Peters

The "Gage" Canal, Riverside Ca.  Limited-Edition Print of 350 (13x19) signed and numbered by the Artist. By the early 1900s, Riverside Ca. (my home town) was one of the largest Orange producing communities in the country, being the birth place of the "Navel" Orange.   The "Gage" Canal (seen here) was built between 1885 and 1889 by Matthew Gage, a Canadian jeweler. He filed a claim for 640 acres under the Desert Land Act of 1877. In order to gain title, Gage had three years to bring water to the land. He built the 11.91-mile-long canal to bring water to this area from the Santa Ana River and later extended it another 8.22 miles through Citrus Park to its terminus. The canal doubled citrus production in Riverside. Today, 90% of the orange groves in Riverside have vanished to make room for housing developments. Those of us old time residents can clearly remember the wonderful smell of the Orange blossoms in the Springtime. In the Wintertime we heard the sounds of old airplane engines spin