Nathan Gonzales again impressed us with his wealth of
knowledge of the history of our region. Nathan addressed
the burning question of where we got the nickname “Inland
Empire”. The first use of the term dated back to 1902 when
the city of San Pedro was labeled the “gateway to the inland
empire”. The same term was also used in the San Joaquin
Valley and seemed to take hold for our region in 1914. Due to
all of the citrus in the region, at the time, the region was also
appropriately labeled the “orange empire”. Nathan provided
many other interesting facts about our region including how we
were the favorite winter vacation spot before Palm Springs got
air conditioning. He finished with a photo of the first Baker’s
fast food restaurant located near Redlands High School, now
occupied by Starbucks. Larry Burgess told the club how
Nathan took on Starbucks and was able to preserve the historic
architecture for the building making it one of the more unique
Starbucks locations.