Welcome to the Palm Springs History Talk Club. To the left is our theme music video. A short book about the history of Palm Springs is below.
The club meets weekly on group phone calls. It works like a radio call-in talk show. You can call-in to listen and talk, and also tell your favorite stories about the history of Palm Springs. Club meeting dates and times will be posted on this website.
To join a meeting, please call (857) 232-0158 and then enter the code 479087. You can talk by entering on your phone keypad the keys 5* to unmute your line.
Al Young
Producer and Host
Palm Springs History Talk Club
Call/text: (520) 338-1004
Email: al@alyoung.net
THE HISTORY OF PALM SPRINGS
Movies and TV shows filmed in Palm Springs.
Movies:
"Palm Springs" (1936) David Niven
"High Sierra" (1941) Humphrey Bogart
"Drive A Crooked Road" (1954) Mickey Rooney
"The Cool Ones" (1967) Roddy McDowall
"Kotch" (1971) Walter Matthau
TV Shows:
"I Love Lucy" 1951–1957 TV series. Season 4, Episode 26, "In Palm Springs" (1955).
"The Lucy Show" 1962–1968 TV series. Season 5, Episode 8, "Lucy and Carol [Burnett] in Palm Springs" (1966).
"Here's Lucy" 1968–1974 TV series. Season 3, Episode 17, "Lucy's Vacation" (1971).
"The Bob Cummings Show (1958)
"The Jack Benny Show" (1955-1956)
"The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show" (1951-1957)
"The Andy Williams Show" (1966)
"The Beverly Hillbillies" Season 1, Episode 4, "The Clampetts Meet Mrs. Drysdale" (1962)
"L.A. Law" (1987-1992)
"Beverly Hills 90210" Season 1, Episode 15 "A Fling in Palm Springs" (1991)
"L.A. Doctors" (1999)
"Melrose Place" (1993-1997)
"The Bachelor" Season 1, Episode 2 (2002) and Season 14, Episode 2 (2010)
The Founding of Palm Springs
Pre-colonial history
The first humans to settle in the area were the Cahuilla people, who arrived 2,000 years ago. Cahuilla Indians lived here in isolation from other cultures for hundreds of years prior to European contact. They spoke Ivilyuat, which is a Uto-Aztecan language. Numerous prominent and powerful Cahuilla leaders were from Palm Springs, including Cahuilla Lion (Chief Juan Antonio). While Palm Canyon was occupied during winter months, they often moved to cooler Chino Canyon during the summer months.
The Cahuilla Indians had several permanent settlements in the canyons of Palm Springs, due to the abundance of water and shade. Various hot springs were used during wintertime. The Cahuilla hunted rabbit, mountain goat and quail, while also trapping fish in nearby lakes and rivers. While men were responsible for hunting, women were responsible for collecting berries, acorns and seeds. They also made tortillas from mesquite beans. While the Cahuillas often spent the summers in Indian Canyons, the current site of Spa Resort Casino in downtown was often used during winter due to its natural hot springs.
Native American petroglyphs can be seen in Tahquitz, Chino, and Indian Canyons. The Cahuilla's irrigation ditches, dams and house pits can also be seen here. Ancient petroglyphs, pictographs and mortar holes can be seen in Andreas Canyon. The mortar holes were used to grind acorns into meals.
The Agua Caliente ("Hot Water") Reservation was established in 1876 and consists of 31,128 acres. Six thousand seven hundred acres are located by Downtown Palm Springs. The Native American land is on long lease land and next to one of California's high-end communities, making the tribe one of the wealthiest in California.
The first name for Palm Springs was given by the native Cahuilla: "Se-Khi" (boiling water). When the Agua Caliente Reservation was established by the United States government in 1876, the reservation land was composed of alternating sections (640 acres) of land laid out across the desert in a checkerboard pattern. The alternating non-reservation sections were granted to the Southern Pacific Railroad as an incentive to bring rail lines through the Sonoran Desert.
A number of streets and areas in Palm Springs are named for Native-American notables, including Andreas, Arenas, Amado, Belardo, Lugo, Patencio, Saturnino and Chino. All of these are common Cahuilla surnames.
Presently the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians are composed of several smaller bands who live in the modern day Coachella Valley and San Gorgonio Pass. The Agua Caliente Reservation occupies 32,000 acres, of which 6,700 acres lie within the city limits, making the Agua Caliente natives the city's largest landowners. (Tribal enrollment as of 2010 was 410 people).
Explorers from Mexico
California soldier and explorer José María Estudillo was the first to note the existence of hot springs within the area of what is Palm Springs.
As of 1821 Mexico was independent of Spain and in March 1823 the Mexican Monarchy ended. That same year (in December) Mexican diarist José María Estudillo and Brevet Captain José Romero were sent to find a route from Sonora to Alta California; on their expedition they first recorded the existence of "Agua Caliente" at Palm Springs, California. With the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo after the Mexican-American war, the region became part of the United States in 1848.
Later 19th century
Early names and European settlers
One possible origin of palm in the place name comes from early Spanish explorers who referred to the area as La Palma de la Mano de Dios or "The Palm of God's hand". The earliest use of the name "Palm Springs" is from United States Topographical Engineers who used the term in 1853 maps. According to William Bright, when the word "palm" appears in Californian place names, it usually refers to the native California fan palm, Washingtonia filifera, which is abundant in the Palm Springs area. Other early names were "Palmetto Spring" and "Big Palm Springs".
The first European resident in Palm Springs itself was Jack Summers, who ran the stagecoach station on the Bradshaw Trail in 1862. Fourteen years later (1876), the Southern Pacific railroad was laid 6 miles (9.5 km) to the north, isolating the station. In 1880, local Indian Pedro Chino was selling parcels near the springs to William Van Slyke and Mathew Bryne in a series of questionable transactions; they in turn brought in W. R. Porter to help market their property through the "Palm City Land and Water Company". By 1885, when San Francisco attorney (later known as "Judge") John Guthrie McCallum began buying property in Palm Springs, the name was already in wide acceptance. The area was named "Palm Valley" when McCallum incorporated the "Palm Valley Land and Water Company" with partners O.C. Miller, H.C. Campbell, and James Adams, M.D.
McCallum, who had brought his ill son to the dry climate for health, brought in irrigation advocate Dr. Oliver Wozencroft and engineer J. P. Lippincott to help construct a canal from the Whitewater River to fruit orchards on his property. He also asked Dr. Welwood Murray to establish a hotel across the street from his residence. Murray did so in 1886 (he later became a famous horticulturalist). The crops and irrigation systems suffered flooding in 1893 from record rainfall, and then an 11-year drought (1894–1905) caused further damage.
20th century
Resort development
Palm Springs became a fashionable resort in the 1900's when health tourists arrived with conditions that required dry heat. Because of the heat, however, the population dropped markedly in the summer months. In 1906 naturalist and travel writer George Wharton James's two volume The Wonders of the Colorado Desert described Palm Springs as having "great charms and attractiveness" and included an account of his stay at Murray's hotel. As James also described, Palm Springs was more comfortable in its microclimate because the area was covered in the shadow of Mount San Jacinto to the west and in the winter the mountains block cold winds from the San Gorgonio pass.[38] Early illustrious visitors included John Muir and his daughters, U.S. Vice President Charles Fairbanks, and Fanny Stevenson, widow of Robert Louis Stevenson; still, Murray's hotel was closed in 1909 and torn down in 1954.
Nellie N. Coffman and her physician husband Harry established The Desert Inn as a hotel and sanitarium in 1909. It was expanded as a modern hotel in 1927 and continued on until 1967. Coffman herself was a "driving force" in the city's tourism industry until her death in 1950.
James's Wonders of the Colorado Desert was followed in 1920 by J. Smeaton Chase's Our Araby: Palm Springs and the Garden of the Sun, which also promoted the area. In 1924 Pearl McCallum (daughter of Judge McCallum) returned to Palm Springs and built the Oasis Hotel with her husband Austin G. McManus; the Modern/Art Deco resort was designed by Lloyd Wright and featured a 40-foot tower.
The next major hotel was the El Mirador, a large and luxurious resort that attracted the biggest movie stars; opening in 1927, its prominent feature was a 68-foot-tall Renaissance style tower. Silent film star Fritzi Ridgeway's 100-room Hotel del Tahquitz was built in 1929, next to the "Fool's Folly" mansion built by Chicago heiress Lois Kellogg. Golfing was available at the O'Donnell 9 hole course (1926) and the El Mirador (1929) course. Hollywood movie stars were attracted by the hot dry, sunny weather and seclusion—they built homes and estates in the Warm Sands, The Mesa, and Historic Tennis Club neighborhoods (see Neighborhoods below). About 20,000 visitors came to the area in 1922.
Palm Springs became popular with movie stars in the 1930s and estate building expanded into the Movie Colony neighborhoods, Tahquitz River Estates, and Las Palmas neighborhoods. Actors Charles Farrell and Ralph Bellamy opened the Racquet Club in 1934 and Pearl McCallum opened the Tennis Club in 1937. Nightclubs were set up as well, with Al Wertheimer opening The Dunes outside of Palm Springs in 1934 and the Chi Chi nightclub opening in 1936. Besides the gambling available at the Dunes Club, other casinos included The 139 Club and The Cove Club outside of the city.
Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palm_Springs,_California