Est. 1902 · National Historic Landmark · Spanish Mission Revival Architecture · Frank Miller Legacy · Riverside Civic History
The Mission Inn began in 1876 as Glenwood Cottage, a twelve-room adobe-and-wood boardinghouse built on the site by civil engineer Christopher Columbus Miller as a secondary income for his family. In 1880 his son Frank Augustus Miller (1858-1935) bought the property and began the gradual expansion that would consume the rest of his life.
By 1902, with Riverside flush with citrus money, Frank Miller had secured financing from Pacific Electric magnate Henry E. Huntington and retained architect Arthur Burnett Benton. Benton's first major addition — the Mission Wing in Spanish Colonial Revival style — opened in 1903. The Cloister Wing, with its music room and Carmel Dome, followed in 1911. Subsequent wings, towers, and the underground catacombs filled out the block over the next two decades, with Frank Miller traveling the world to bring back art, artifacts, and architectural fragments to embed in the building.
Frank Miller died on June 17, 1935; the city of Riverside paused for fifteen minutes to mark the moment. The hotel passed to family hands and then through several twentieth-century ownership arrangements before its current operation. It was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1977.
The catacombs — a network of tunnels and chambers running beneath the property — were a signature element of Miller's construction program. They are not part of general guest access; the only public entry is via the Daily Historic Tour, which departs twice daily from the lobby.
Sources
- https://www.missioninn.com/experiences/daily-historic-tours
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mission_Inn_Hotel_%26_Spa
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Augustus_Miller
- https://www.historichotels.org/us/hotels-resorts/the-mission-inn-hotel-and-spa/history.php
- https://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/CA-01-071-0002
- https://theparanormalplayground.co/haunted-mission-inn-riverside/
- https://evergreen-cemetery.info/people/alice-miller-richardson/
ApparitionsCold spotsEVPEMF anomaliesPhantom soundsPhantom voicesLights flickeringTouching/pushingBattery drain
The story that has followed the Mission Inn for decades involves sound rather than sight. A former employee recalled an older gentleman who had been placed in an upper floor room — the only guest on the floor due to construction elsewhere in the hotel. When asked the next morning whether his accommodations were adequate, the man said everything was fine, especially the woman singing beautifully in the adjacent room.
Alice Miller Richardson — Frank Miller's sister, who managed the hotel alongside Frank and continued after his 1935 death until her own in 1938 — is the name attached to that account. Her fourth-floor room in the southeast corner of the building is the most consistently cited paranormal location. Guests and staff have reported cold spots, cold physical contact, and apparitions of a woman in period clothing. The singing is the account that recurs most distinctly.
Frank Miller's room in the northeast corner of the same floor has its own pattern of reports — cold zones, unexplained sounds, flickering lights — though less centered on a specific manifestation.
The catacombs present a different category of experience. The tunnel network, accessible only via the guided tour, has produced reports of disembodied voices and footsteps, along with sightings of a figure in what witnesses describe as monastic robes. Paranormal investigation teams using EMF meters and EVP equipment have visited the tunnels; the specific results of those sessions are described in general terms in available sources rather than with precise data.
Guests across the building have also described being physically touched or pushed, cell phone failure in specific corridor sections, and floating blue lights in the courtyard areas.
Notable Entities
Alice MillerFrank MillerThe Catacomb Monk
