Monday will mark the 40th anniversary of the closing of the Mission Inn for its much-anticipated complete renovation and rebirth.

For many Riversiders, it was the beginning of a hoped-for rejuvenation of both the beautiful hotel and Riverside’s downtown.

The Mission Inn Hotel & Spa of today is a vastly different entity than the one of the 1970s and ’80s. The hotel had been hemorrhaging money for years, a victim of a nearly universal change in the way people vacationed and traveled.

After nearly 10 years of city ownership, with no substantive solution to its problems on the horizon, the city decided that something drastic needed to be done. No more Band-Aid solutions — the inn had to be completely restored.

The city sought bids/buyers for entities that could undertake such a project, and in the end, the contract was given to the Carley Capital Group of Wisconsin. It was experienced in such projects, and so it came in and shut down the hotel June 30, 1985.

The renovation was originally scheduled to take two years, but that would be after about a one-year interval when plans were developed and permits obtained. By December 1988, an opening of the hotel, under the management of Omni Hotels, was planned. Unfortunately, Carley had spread itself pretty thin, and as December approached, Carley announced that it had filed for bankruptcy and the entire project — and opening — came to a screeching halt.

Many people were worried about what would happen to the inn. Precious little information was given out over the next several years. It was almost as if the entire downtown was put on hold for a while.

That waiting period ended in 1992 when, after one failed attempt, another came about in fall of that year.

At that time, local businessman Duane Roberts came forward and negotiated a successful purchase of the inn. Events happened so quickly that many were caught off guard, but in the end, the purchase was made and the inn had a soft opening at the end of 1992. This soft opening was followed by months of more and more rooms being finished and available for occupancy, until by May 1993, the entire hotel had been reopened and successfully restored.

On a personal note, in June 1985, I had just graduated from Cal Poly Pomona and had heard about the inn’s closing.

Though I wasn’t much aware of its history, I knew of its importance, but also figured that they may opt to tear it down once they dug into it and figured out just how bad the building actually was. I took a number of slide photos on June 28, two days before the closing, and was thrown out of the hotel twice!

Regardless, those photos, one of which accompanies this article, show pretty well just how desperate the hotel was in need of a complete renovation. Luckily for the Mission Inn and downtown Riverside, most of the renovation had already been completed by the time Carley filed for bankruptcy, and the hotel was able to find a native visionary in Duane Roberts to take it from recently restored structure to the landmark it is today.

If you have an idea for a future Back in the Day column about a local historic person, place or event, contact Steve Lech and Kim Jarrell Johnson at backinthedaype@gmail.com.