Coachella Valley
The 'Coachella Valley' is an
irrigated agricultural and recreational
desert valley in southern
California,
United States (U.S.), east of
Los Angeles. The valley extends for approximately 45 miles (72 km) in
Riverside County southeast from the
San Bernardino Mountains to the saltwater
Salton Sea, the largest lake in California. It is approximately 15 miles (24 km) wide along most of its length, bounded on the west by the
San Jacinto Mountains and the
Santa Rosa Mountains and on the north and east by the
Little San Bernardino Mountains. The
San Andreas Fault crosses the valley from the
Chocolate Mountains in the southeast corner and along the centerline of the Little San Bernardinos. The fault is easily visible along its northern length as a strip of greenery against an otherwise bare mountain. The Chocolate Mountains are home to a
United States Navy live gunnery range and are mostly off-limits to the public. In comparison to the "
Inland Empire" (Riverside-San Bernardino area and the California desert), some people refer to the Coachella Valley as the "Desert Empire".
Geographers and
geologists sometimes call the area, along with the
Imperial Valley to the south, the "Cahuilla Basin" or the "Salton Trough."
[1]
Communities and population
The Coachella Valley contains nine cities and various unincorporated communities.
| City | Population (2000 census) | Population (2005 estimate) |
|---|
| Cathedral City | 42,647 | 50,632 |
| Coachella | 22,724 | 30,764 |
| Desert Hot Springs | 16,582 | 19,386 |
| Indian Wells | 3,816 | 4,781 |
| Indio | 49,116 | 66,118 |
| La Quinta | 23,694 | 36,145 |
| Palm Desert | 41,155 | 49,280 |
| Palm Springs | 42,807 | 45,731 |
| Rancho Mirage | 13,249 | 16,416 |
| Unincorporated area | 76,695 | 91,721 |
| Coachella Valley Total | 332,485 | 410,974 |
|---|
The Coachella Valley is one of the fastest-growing areas in the country, due in part to its location in Riverside County, California, and to real estate booms in the 1990s. The area, made of nine incorporated cities, has a total population of over 400,000, twice the number of 1990 (185,000) and three times than in 1980 (80,000). State projections estimate that the valley's population will pass 600,000 by the year 2020 and 1.1 million by 2066.
[2]
The popular resort community of
Palm Springs sits at the northwest end of the valley. Unincorporated areas and towns include
Bermuda Dunes and
Thousand Palms in the west end of the valley with
Indio Hills,
Sky Valley,
North Palm Springs and
Garnet along the northern rim along with
Thermal,
Valerie Jean,
Vista Santa Rosa,
Oasis and
Mecca to the southeast. The native
Cahuilla tribe represented in the
Cabazon Band of Mission Indians,
Twentynine Palms Band of Mission Indians,
Agua Caliente Cahuilla Band of Mission Indians and the
Torres-Martinez Band of Cahuilla Indians each have reservations in the area.
A retirement haven throughout the area's history, senior citizens and the wealthy came to live in the Coachella Valley and a large percentage of residents are age 65 or older.
Though the area is somewhat politically fiscally conservative, it is nevertheless renowned for being a community that is known for its inclusion of
gays and
lesbians as part of a diverse community. Current estimates are that up to 33% of Palm Spring's residents identify as gay and lesbian.
[3] Cathedral City is also home to a number of gay resorts, bars, restaurants and clubs. Many establishments along a stretch of Arenas Road in downtown Palm Springs are gay-oriented and serve as the center of the annual
White Party. According to an interview with Palm Springs mayor
Ron Oden, perhaps the nation's only openly gay African-American mayor,
[4] Palm Springs has one of the highest per capita rates of HIV/AIDS in the nation.
The area has a large percentage of
Mexican American political figures, plus the state assembly representative
Bonnie Garcia of La Quinta is of
Puerto Rican parentage.
Racial/ethnic diversity
The Coachella Valley was settled by a diverse array of races and ethnicities. Once viewed as predominantly Caucasian, the Coachella Valley has features of a diverse history. As of 2004, the Claritas study
[5] found that 373,100 people resided in the region. The racial makeup was 44.70% Non-Hispanic White, 49.90% Hispanic, 1.80% Black/African American, 2.10% Asian/Pacific Islander, 0.40% American Indian and Eskimo, 0.10% from other races, and 1.10% from two or more races.
African Americans are concentrated in Palm Springs' northern and eastern ends, as well in small sections of Indio and Desert Hot Springs, but local blacks live everywhere in middle-class and wealthy areas, blacks are less than 5 percent of the local population. The area is home to 10,000
Asian Americans (mostly from
Sri Lanka), descendants of agricultural workers in the 1930s and 1940s (another large community is Imperial Valley to the south). And Palm Desert is said the home of 1,000
Tahitians, a
Pacific Islander people from
French Polynesia.
In the early 20th century, less than 1,000 full-time residents from across the U.S. lived in the "village" (Palm Springs), surrounding farms and ranches, and on the Indian reservation. The
1930 U.S. census found less than half the Coachella Valley's population was "white", the rest were
Mexicans especially in the eastern ends (Indio and Coachella) when
traqueros arrived to maintain the area's railroads, and
Native Americans of local tribes in what was then impoverished reservations.
Starting in the 1890s, there has been a large
Irish and
Scottish presence in the region, after Palm Springs was an established agricultural colony called "Palm Valley" cofounded by Welwood Murray, a Scottish immigrant and John Guthrie McCallum, an American from the U.S. East coast. The two men widely advertised the colony to settlers in an interest of a warm climate and the ideal winter residence.
[6] It might explain the high percentage of East Coast Americans (New Englanders), Canadians, and
British citizens in Palm Springs during the early 1900s.
The area's population growth included members of several immigrant communities including
Italians and
Poles after
World War II, mostly settling in a section known as "Little Tuscany" in Palm Springs. Soon,
Germans,
French and
Scandinavians compromised a segment of residents. Today, affluent tourists from
Canada, Europe and
Australia frequently visit and some decidedly relocated in the area. Britons are increasingly coming to Palm Springs and desert cities, for vacations or often to retire.
The Coachella Valley has a
Jewish community, and according to the
United Jewish Citizens of the Desert, the Coachella Valley has an estimated 20,000
American Jews, one of California's largest Jewish communities. But all faiths and denominations are found and represented in the area, the largest church being
Roman Catholic. There is also a sizable
Mormon community, settling here since the early 1900s, with three branches of the
Latter Day Saints church.
Hispanics are long established Palm Springs' central and eastern sections, and have constituted the majority of the populations of
Indio and
Coachella for many decades. In the 2000 U.S. census, about 35 percent of Coachella Valley residents were Latino. But according to the
United States Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, an estimated half (50–60 percent) of the percentage of residents are Latino.
Most of the valley's Latinos are
Mexican or
Mexican American from a multi-generational community (see
Chicano), but
Central American immigrants (especially in Indio and Cathedral City),
Cuban Americans,
Puerto Ricans, and South Americans are also prevalent (especially in Rancho Mirage and Palm Desert). The two-decade-old trend of immigration from neighboring Mexico has culturally impacted the Coachella Valley in many more ways than the rest of California or the country has experienced.
Most Latinos came to obtain work in the area's year-round
agriculture, but today many find employment in
construction and home remodeling, the resort
hospitality industry,
landscaping firms, and in the
retail sector. According to a 2006 real estate report by the Coachella Valley Association of Realtors, about 3 out of 5 new homeowners are Latino, and the majority of them are middle class, raising families in two-income households, and came from urban centers of
Southern California around Los Angeles and San Diego.
The prominence of
Native Americans of the
Cahuilla tribe is represented in local life; because of casino gaming and land ownership, the majority of local tribal members (Cahullas pertained to the Agua Caliente band and the Cabazon/Twentynine Palms bands) are in upper-income brackets. According to the Southern California
National Congress of American Indians, less than 5 percent of the area's residents are Native Americans.
Other ethnic groups in the area like
Chinese,
Japanese and
Filipinos, followed by a small wave of
Armenians and
Arabs (esp.
Lebanese and
Syrians) from the Middle East were involved in the area's agriculture in the early 1900s. In recent years, the area (especially Palm Desert and Palm Springs) became popular to
Iranian,
Israeli,
East Indian, and
Korean home buyers, with most purchasing increasingly high-valued properties for investment purposes.
In mid-2000, Palm Springs city officials and business leaders discussed on an unofficial declaration of Palm Springs as a "hate-free zone" as a sign of local pride to celebrate the city's
tolerance (Palm Springs, especially, is voted one of the top five most popular world cities for the gay/lesbian lifestyle.) and multicultural
diversity of the city's relaxed attitude regarding many races living close together.
Geography and climate
The area is surrounded on the southwest by the
Santa Rosa and
San Jacinto mountain ranges, and the
Little San Bernardino Mountains on the northeast. These mountains peak at around 11,000 feet and tend to average between three to five thousand feet. This effectively blocks the
marine layer familiar to most other Southern Californian areas. Sometimes a weather system can come through one of the narrow passes, or up from the
Gulf of California as
Hurricane Kathleen did in September 1976. Daily high temperatures in the summer rarely go lower than 105°F. At wintertime, the temperatures range from 50°F to 80°F, making it a popular winter resort destination.
Although geographically the valley is the northwestern extension of the
Colorado Desert to the southeast, the irrigation of over 100,000 acres (405 km²) of the valley since the early 20th century has allowed widespread
agriculture. In its 2006 annual report, the Coachella Valley Water District listed the year's total crop value at over $576 million or almost $12,000 per acre.
[7] The
Coachella Canal, a concrete-lined aqueduct built between 1938 and 1948 as a branch of the
All-American Canal, brings water from the
Colorado River to the valley. The
Colorado River Aqueduct, which provides drinking water to Los Angeles and
San Diego, crosses the northeast end of the valley along the base of the Little San Bernardino Mountains (the
Joshua Tree National Park).
The
San Andreas Fault runs down the Valley's east side. Because of this fault the Valley has many hot springs. The Santa Rosa Mountains to the West are part of the Lake Elsinore Fault zone. The Results of a prehistoric
sturzstrom can be seen in Martinez Canyon. The Painted Canyons of Mecca feature smaller faults as well as Precambrian, Tertiary and Quaternary rock formations, unconformities, badlands and desert landforms. Seismic activity is what triggers
earthquakes, a common natural but on occasion, destructive phenomena in the Coachella Valley, and fault lines causes hot water springs or geysers to rise from the ground. Earthquakes and natural water sources are what brought possible inhabitation and development in a desert like the Coachella Valley.
Agriculture
Fruit
The valley is the primary
date-growing region in the United States, responsible for nearly 95 percent of the nation's crop and is celebrated each year in Indio during the Riverside
County Fair and National Date Festival. The earliest attempt at growing dates came about in 1890 when the
United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) imported date palm shoots from
Iraq and
Egypt. Sixty-eight shoots were distributed across the Southwest U.S. in
Las Cruces, New Mexico,
Yuma, Arizona,
Phoenix, Arizona, and several California cites: Indio,
Pomona near
Los Angeles,
Tulare and
National City near
San Diego. The imports were almost all male seedlings and produced poor fruit. The Coachella Valley showed promise, so USDA horticulturist Bernard Johnson planted a number of shoots that he brought back from
Algeria in September 1903. On his own initiative, Johnson imported more shoots from Algeria in 1908 and again in 1912. The area's entire date industry can be traced back to those original USDA experiments near present-day Mecca. Date groves were grown from present-day
Cathedral City to the Salton Sea, but most date groves are replaced by development by the 1990s. Today, nearly all the date groves are in the "East Valley" area south of Indio, near Coachella and east of La Quinta.
Other agricultural products cultivated in the Coachella valley include fruits and vegetables, especially table grapes, citrus fruits and peppers along with avocados, artichokes, beans, carrots, corn, cotton, grains (barley, oats and wheat plus rice fields kept wet or moist in the Salton Sea area), lettuce, peaches, persimmons, plums and prunes, spinach, strawberries, tomatoes and other vegetable crops. The Coachella grapefruit originated in the region. The city of
Coachella is the primary shipping point for agricultural goods. Agriculture is a founding block of the majority of "oldtimer" residents (In the 2000 census, only 10 percent of the Coachella Valley residents are born/raised in the area, a very low percentage than most parts of the U.S.), whose parents and grandparents came to the area as farmers and laborers transformed the eastern parts of the valley, from a hot sandy desert into a green fertile place with a year-round growing season. The Coachella and Imperial valley's agricultural miracle is in due part to irrigation, an underground aquifer from the era when the valley was under a fresh water lake in the last
ice age (over 10,000 years ago), and the All-American Canal completed in the late 1940s brought large supplies of water from the Colorado River. Recent growth of fish farming or "
aquaculture" in Mecca near the Salton Sea brings new promise to the local economy, especially in efforts to restore the ailing ecology of the large saltwater lake.
Wind farming
The valley's northwest entrance from the
Inland Empire along
Interstate 10 is known as the
San Gorgonio Pass and is one of the windiest places on earth. Cool coastal air is forced through the pass and mixes with the hot desert air, making the San Gorgonio Pass one of only three ideal places in California for steady, wind-generated electricity. Hundreds of huge wind turbines spread across the desert and hills on either side of the highway greet visitors as they approach the crest of the pass and have become somewhat of a symbol of the area. The state's other wind farms are in the
Tehachapi Pass between
Mojave and
Bakersfield and in the
Altamont Pass near
Livermore. The wind farm was a recent backdrop for a promotional photograph for the 2005
Hyundai Tucson and was featured in the
Tom Cruise feature, ''.
History
There is some contention as to the origin of the name. Early maps show the area as ''"Conchella,"'' the Spanish word for "seashell." Since the area was once a part of a vast inland sea, tiny fossilized mollusk shells can be found in just about every remote area. Local lore explains the change in the name from Conchella to Coachella as a mistake made by the map-makers contracted to transcribe the data supplied by the Southern Pacific Railroad's survey party. Rather than redraw the expensive maps, the railroad chose to instead begin calling the area by the misspelled name "Coachella" rather than its traditional name "Conchella." Some believe that the name Coachella was simply made up, but that theory is rather unlikely. Even though the area had been surveyed by
Edward Fitzgerald Beale in 1857, whose survey party actually used
camels to cross the desert, primarily along the path of the historic
Bradshaw Trail, it wasn't until the coming of the
Southern Pacific Railroad and the discovery of abundant
artesian wells later in the 19th Century that the area began to expand. Cindarella Courtney was the first non-Indian child born in Indio in 1898. The first boy, David Elgin, was born in 1899.
The coming in 1926 of
U.S. Highway 99 northward through Coachella and Indio and westward toward
Los Angeles more or less along the present route of
Interstate 10 helped further open both agriculture, commerce and tourism to the rest of the country. So too did the coming of
State Highway 111 in the early 1930s, which cut a diagonal swath through the valley and connected all of its major settlements. Dr.
June McCarroll, then a nurse with the Southern Pacific whose office fronted U.S. 99 in Indio, is credited with being the first person to delineate a divided highway by painting a stripe down the middle of the roadbed in response to frequent head-on collisions. The standard was refined and adopted worldwide. Doctor McCarroll is memorialized by a stretch of I-10 through Indio named in her honor.
The Coachella Valley became a major real estate destination in the 1980s and 1990s no longer limited to senior citizens, winter residents and retirees. Families with young children and young adults became interested in Palm Springs and surrounding communities for lower cost housing and apartment rents. The tourist attraction we know as Palm Springs has been exported worldwide, an increase of international visitors and now treated as a "year-round" community, the Coachella Valley is sometimes compared to
Las Vegas, Nevada,
Phoenix, Arizona or
Santa Fe, New Mexico as part of the Southwest, as much it's a part of
Southern California's most popular destinations (
San Diego,
Orange County and
Los Angeles). In a 2003 ''
Conde Nast'' publication review, Palm Springs was ranked one of the top 10 global vacation destinations, and the smallest one in population.
Activities and trivia
With more than 350 days of sunshine per year and warm, mild winters—though summer can be quite hot—recreational hiking and horseback riding are popular in the many
canyons in the mountains that surround the valley. One of the most visited outdoor sports areas is Thousand Palms Canyon.
The Coachella Valley was once a safe haven for
hay fever allergy sufferers before the surge of golf courses and year-round lawns, and people with
bronchitis,
emphysema and
asthma chose to relocate for health reasons in the early half of the 20th century.
In the early 1900s, Palm Springs was an ideal farming town and had some space converted to a minor agricultural economy. After that failed, all the fields and groves were replaced by homes and golf courses. Agriculture succeeded in the lower Coachella Valley near the communities of Thermal, Mecca, Oasis and Vista Santa Rosa that had a large underground aquifer to sustain a year-round green environment.
The area has been a magnet for
Hollywood stars since the 1930s when
Bing Crosby,
Charles Farrell and
Ralph Bellamy founded the area's first tennis club in Palm Springs. Crosby would go on to found the Blue Skies Trailer Park in Rancho Mirage, unique for its expensive trailer homes each with its own individual theme. Other 1930s/1940s celebrities known to stop by Palm Springs included
Humphrey Bogart,
John Barrymore,
Douglas Fairbanks Jr.,
Mary Pickford and
Judy Garland.
Farrell, after whom a street in Palm Springs is named, would later be elected mayor. Farrell Drive is built on the path of an old narrow-gauge railroad
right-of-way originally built to serve the proposed town of Palmdale. The town was never built and the railroad was abandoned after a few short years of operation. The ties were used to build one of the area's earliest residences and the Cornelia White House still stands today in downtown Palm Springs.
More than two hundred golf courses blanket the area, making it one of the world's premier golf destinations. The
Merrill Lynch Skins Game is held in La Quinta each
Thanksgiving and draws some of the biggest names in golf. The
PGA has a major presence in La Quinta as well with the PGA WEST golf and residential complex. One of the host courses of the aforementioned Bob Hope Chrysler Classic, a PGA WEST fairway represents the area in
Soarin' Over California, an
IMAX-based attraction at
Disney's California Adventure theme park.
The area is also dotted with classy,
Las Vegas-style casinos run by local Indian tribes as well as resort hotels and spas with natural
mineral water wells, making it a prime vacation destination as well. The
Palm Springs Aerial Tramway, considered to be one of the greatest engineering feats of the 20th Century, takes visitors from the valley floor to the
San Jacinto Peak mountain station 8516 feet (2595 m) above sea level.
Palm Springs is home to one of the country's largest collections of mid-century architecture. Thousands of homes, apartments, hotels, businesses and other buildings were designed in this fashion across the city. International mid-century enthusiasts come to Palm Springs to admire the design.
An Annual Air Show in November is held at the
Jacqueline Cochran Regional Airport in Thermal. The
Palm Springs Airport Annual Air Show held every January displays World War II-era fighter jets.
In recent years, the area has become a mecca for fans of
alternative music. The Empire Polo Club in Indio hosts the outdoor
Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival each May, drawing thousands of alternative music fans from across the country.
The Desert Circuit Horse Show is one of the nations largest horse competitions is also held at the Polo Grounds from January through March, as well as polo matches by such celebrities as
Prince Charles of England.
The Coachella Valley attempted to draw in sports teams, minor league and semi-pro with limited success. In the 1990s, Palm Desert city officials approved a sports arena, but never broke ground. But in 2006, Indio city officials had approved an U.S. Olympic team training facility to be completed by 2009.
The
Palm Springs Power collegiate
baseball team plays in
Palm Springs Stadium every summer, and the
College of the Desert offers college-level sports, the Road Runners in baseball,
football and
basketball in its campus in Palm Desert.
The recently-expanded
Palm Springs Convention Center by the Wyndham hotel in Palm Springs is the area's main venue for shows, concerts, auctions, expos or exhibits. In the past, it hosted exhibition basketball,
roller hockey games,
ice skating events and indoor sports played there.
Auto racing returns to the streets of Palm Springs for October 2008, when the first annual
Palm Springs Grand Prix takes place on a closed 2-mile track on select city streets. Palm Springs hosted a vintage car race from 1988 to 2002 and twice attempted to have a speedway in the early 1990s, but never had the approval by city and county commissions.
Other celebrities
Congressional Medal of Honor recipient Captain
William McGonagle was a graduate of Coachella High School and made the valley his home after his retirement.
Mitchell Paige was another Congressional Medal of Honor veteran, but lived in Palm Desert and has a newly opened middle school named after him.
Jacqueline Cochran, founder and director of the Women Airforce Service Pilots lived her last years in Indio. In 2005,
Microsoft CEO
Bill Gates reportedly bought and owns a home in either Palm Desert or Palm Springs.
Elvis Presley honeymooned in Palm Springs in 1967 and was a frequent visitor as well.
Frank Sinatra,
Bob Hope and
Dinah Shore were residents of the valley and were instrumental in the creation of three major
golf tournaments, the
Frank Sinatra Celebrity Golf Tournament,
Bob Hope Chrysler Classic (now hosted by comedian and golf aficionado
George Lopez) and the
Nabisco LPGA respectively. All three have streets named in their honor as does President
Gerald Ford, a longtime Rancho Mirage resident and benefactor of the
substance abuse center that bears his wife's name, the
Betty Ford Center on the campus of the Eisenhower Medical Center, named for general, U.S. president and part-time resident
Dwight Eisenhower. Sinatra and his friends, including
Dean Martin,
Perry Como,
Tony Bennett,
Sammy Davis Jr.,
Rosemary Clooney and
Connie Francis were frequent visitors in the close-knit celebrity community of the Coachella Valley in the 1950s/1960s.
The main road into
Palm Springs International Airport, named simply "Airport Road", was renamed
Kirk Douglas Way on
October 17,
2004. Douglas, a major area benefactor, lived in the valley for more than fifty years and currently resides in
Montecito. He is credited with spearheading the drive to modernize the area over those ensuing five decades. His son
Michael Douglas, also an actor, is said to own a residence in Palm Springs with his actress wife
Catherine Zeta-Jones.
More famous names
Lucille Ball and
Desi Arnaz were instrumental in forming the exclusive Thunderbird Heights tract in Rancho Mirage that President and Mrs. Ford lives there. The Coachella Valley is where
Anne Rice,
Ginger Rogers,
Mary Martin,
Walter Annenberg,
Red Skelton,
Lawrence Welk,
Fred Waring,
Gene Autry,
Martin Landau,
Monty Hall,
William Devane, and others call home. According to ''Palm Springs Life'' magazine, that same tract would loan its name to a new car in late 1954, the
Ford Thunderbird. The magazine also cites that a favorite vacation spot for
General Motors executives, Palm Desert's Eldorado Country Club, loaned its name to
Cadillac's top model the year before. Local automotive history also states that designer
Raymond Loewy penned the
Studebaker Avanti in his Palm Springs home. Especially since the 1950s, Palm Springs and nearby golf clubs are hailed as the "playground of celebrities", but in lesser numbers celebrities don't travel or reside in the Palm Springs area as much they used to, but the area's "star power" made a comeback in the 2000s.
Ball and Arnaz helped finance construction of the Indian Wells Country Club. Founded in 1956 with their winter residence on famous ''
DesiLu Court'', Indian Wells became a major factor in "down valley" growth in the 1970s and 1980s. A mostly
gated community, Indian Wells has one of the highest ''per capita'' income of any small town in the United States while nearby Coachella, a short distance southeast on
California State Highway 111 is the third poorest city in the nation, though that is rapidly changing as the area develops. A memorial to Eisenhower can be found on the front lawn of Indian Wells City Hall, also features the local veterans memorial plaque to represent the community's 800 veterans, a high number of war veterans per ratio of its' predominantly senior citizen population. Coachella has the
Vietnam War veterans' memorial to represent their community's high representation of armed forces volunteers, a large percentage had Spanish surnames since the city's population are over 90 percent Latino.
A few celebrities actually grew up in the desert: Top Grammy Award Winning Songwriter/Producer
Billy Steinberg grew up in
Palm Springs and worked at the Dave Freedman Grape Farm in
Thermal. In neighboring La Quinta is the hometown of actress
Vanessa Marcil, while
Cameron Crowe was a "desert rat" in a rural home near Indio, a young
Suzanne Somers briefly lived in Cathedral City, former
NFL football athlete
Casey Merrill lives in Bermuda Dunes, and golf sensation
Michelle Wie currently resides in Palm Desert. The Coachella Valley was the scene of the British 1980s rock group
Tears for Fears' music video ''
Everybody Wants to Rule the World,'' which features the vocal duo driving across the desert and stopping by a few local points of interest, such as the dinosaur sculptures in Cabazon and the northern shores of the Salton Sea. And
Michael Jackson starred in the 1991 music video ''
In the Closet,'' which was shot on location south of Coachella.
The President and the general
President
John F. Kennedy was a frequent guest of Frank Sinatra's, and a plaque in one of the pews of Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Palm Desert marks the spot where Kennedy would usually sit during Mass. That same area in Palm Desert once served as a training ground for General
George Patton's Third Army troops and tank battalions; today, the site is home to the very upscale El Paseo shopping district. Patton also trained in a huge plot of desert stretching from
Chiriaco Summit just off the eastern end of the valley northward almost to
Amboy along
U.S. Highway 66 in the
Mojave Desert. Tank tracks from those maneuvers are still visible today in the open desert and a museum dedicated to Patton is located in Chiriaco Summit. Patton was also a frequent guest at the Whittier Ranch House in Indio, a grand adobe structure facing the possibility of demolition as the ranch lands surrounding it are presently being developed. A grass roots organization is petitioning the city to preserve the structure for use as a
VFW post.
From recordings to restaurants to Congress
Sonny Bono ran a restaurant in downtown Palm Springs. Frustrated by the lack of cooperation he faced from the city council over a new sign for the restaurant, the entertainer took matters into his own hands and ran for mayor. He retained local
conservative talk radio host
Marshall Gilbert (heard regularly on
KNWQ) as his campaign manager in a successful bid that not only put Bono back in the public eye, but fueled his later campaign for a seat on the
United States Congress, a position he held until his death in a skiing accident in 1998. His widow,
Mary, filled the vacancy left by her husband and later campaigned successfully on her own. Both he and Frank Sinatra are buried at Desert Memorial Park (now the Forest Lawn Mortuary) in Cathedral City.
Paradise found
The
La Quinta Resort and Club, a series of bungalows built in 1926 in what was then known as Marshall's Cove is the oldest resort in the valley.
Frank Capra wrote the script for ''
Lost Horizon'' poolside at the La Quinta. Capra is buried in nearby Coachella. So fond was
Walt Disney of his property at the Smoke Tree Ranch in Palm Springs that he had the ranch's brand embroidered on all of his neckties. Disney reluctantly sold the property to help finance the construction of
Disneyland. ''The Partners'', bronze statues of Disney standing next to
Mickey Mouse in each of the Disney theme parks clearly show the brand on Walt's tie. The
Coachella Valley Mountains Conservancy was created by the
California Legislature in 1990 to aid in the protection of the surrounding mountains. In 2003, the designated conservancy area was slated to become the
Santa Rosa Mountains National Monument by the
U.S. National Park Service.
Events and activities
Changing exhibits of sculptures can be found along El Paseo Drive in Palm Desert.
Palm Springs became a miniature version of Hollywood and a rival to Sundance, Utah;
with the annual
Palm Springs International Film Festival every January
and the
Palm Springs International Short Film Festival held in August,
at the historic Plaza theater.
And for professional tennis fans, the Indian Wells Tennis Garden opened in 2000 hosts the
Pacific Life Tennis Tournament annually in March, and the
Davis Cup at the Mission Hills in Rancho Mirage every June.
Each April, Indio Hosts the
Riverside County Fair and National Date Festival. Indio is also the site of the annual Coachella Music festival, a rock music concert venue in the Indio/Empire Polo Ground.
Notable companies based in the Coachella Valley
★
United States Filter Corporation headquarters, Palm Desert - manufacturers of industrial water filtration systems.
★
Guthy-Renker, Palm Desert and
Thane International, La Quinta - the nation's leading producers of mail order
infomercials.
★
Western Golf Car, Desert Hot Springs - one of the world's largest
golf cart design and manufacturing facilities. Lido Motors, a company founded by
Lee Iacocca, produces
neighborhood electric vehicles in conjunction with Western Golf Car.
★
West Coast Turf, Indio - official supplier of sod to the
Super Bowl. West Coast Turf was also the site of an episode of
Monster Garage in which a
Ford Mustang convertible was converted into a lawn mower.
★
Ernie Ball, one of the world's leading manufacturers of electric guitar strings, opened a manufacturing facility in Coachella in 2005.
★
Armtec Defense Products, Coachella, is a member of
Esterline Technologies' Defense Group, one of the world's largest
combustible ordnance manufacturers.
★
Living Desert Zoo and Gardens, Palm Desert
★
Shields Date Gardens, a local landmark and tourist attraction since 1924.
Pop culture references
The generation defining novel "" by Canadian novelist Douglas Coupland describes the angst of those born between roughly 1960 and 1965 and is set in the Palm Springs of the late 1980s.
A second classic 1980s novel "
Less Than Zero", a tale of disaffected, rich teenagers of Los Angeles, has its climatic scenes of excess and despair set in Palm Springs. "Less Than Zero" was made into a film in 1987, directed by Marek Kanievska and starring Andrew McCarthy, Robert Downey Jr and Jami Gertz.
Noteworthy and memorable pop culture references include the animated
Looney Tunes short, ''Bully for Bugs''. In it,
Bugs Bunny requests directions to the Coachella Valley "and the carrot festival therein." An annual carrot festival is in fact held just outside the area in the
Imperial County town of
Holtville.
The most famous movie filmed in the Coachella Valley is arguably "
It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World" with a star studded cast. This film even includes the former Desert Air airport (now the Rancho Mirage Marriott hotel complex).
The early 1960s would see the movie ''
Palm Springs Weekend'' filmed on location. A humorous situation involving four drunk LAPD policemen in a rented aircraft attempting to reclaim a Palm Springs golf course in the name of the local Indian tribes can be found in the 1975 novel, ''
The Choirboys''.
In the 1984 music video by
Tears for Fears' ''
Everybody Wants to Rule the World'' being shot on location in the Coachella Valley. The rock video features scenes of a few local landmarks: the dinosaur structures near Cabazon, the windmill farms, scenery along Interstate 10 and state route 111, and the shores of the Salton Sea.
In 1988, "The Race" by Swiss dance band
Yello featured a fictitious sportscaster talking about the "thirty-first annual formula race" in Palm Springs. While Palm Springs did briefly host an annual
Grand Prix, it ran for considerably fewer than thirty-one years.
In the 1990s two television series shows ''
P.S. I Love You'' and ''
Phenom,'' the characters and plots were set in Palm Springs.
In 2006,
The CW television network had a teen drama series ''
Hidden Palms'' is set in a gated desert community near Palm Springs, although there is a real ''Hidden Palms'' in Palm Desert.
In local
Tyler Hilton's song "When It Comes", he references Palm Desert's strip of high-class fashion and dining singing, ''When I'm cruising El Paseo / In my off-white coup back '65.''
In an episode of the animated comedy ''
Family Guy'', baby Stewie and his friend, Brian (a talking dog) figured a way to return home from vacation in Lois' parents home in Palm Springs.
Media
The Coachella Valley, under the title "Palm Springs", is a distinct
Nielsen and
Arbitron ratings market, with eight local television stations and twenty radio stations. Cable subscribers under
Time Warner can receive Los Angeles television channels as part of basic cable service. Satellite television and satellite radio are available as well. In newsprint, the
Gannett Company-owned ''
The Desert Sun'' is the local daily paper; the Riverside ''
Press-Enterprise'', ''
San Diego Union-Tribune'' and ''
Los Angeles Times'' are also sold there. ''
The New York Times'' is sold through
Starbucks Coffee outlets. The ''Press-Enterprise'' also publishes ''The D'', a weekly
tabloid-style paper dispensed for free at newsstands, restaurants and stores. The area's most known publication, ''
Palm Springs Life'' caters to the valley's rich and famous elites, the magazines is available across the Coachella Valley and in urban areas throughout the Western U.S.
Transportation
The area is served by the
Palm Springs International Airport.
Interstate 10 runs along the northeastern rim of the valley.
California Highway 111 runs for about thirty miles along the southwestern rim of the valley, which is where population is concentrated highest, though with the
urban sprawl and growth taking place there in recent years, this population is expanding toward the freeway rapidly. A four-lane expressway,
State Highway 86 opened the early 1990s bypasses Coachella and goes south to the Imperial Valley, connects with the U.S.-Mexican border town of
Mexicali, Mexico. The limited public transportation in the valley is provided by the
SunLine Transit Agency based in Thousand Palms, known by its' nickname ''Sunbus'', plans to expand public transit bus routes across the Coachella Valley with a new route in the agricultural "East Valley" (Mecca and Thermal) and serve non-driving residents from gated communities away from route 111.
Notes and references
1. USGS - Salton Trough
2. Coachella Valley Economic Partnership - Population Trends
3. The Body: African-American HIV/AIDS Resource Center: Interview with Ron Oden
4.
5. Coachella Valley Economic Partnership - Racial Composition
6. Facts and Legends: The Village of Palm Springs, Sally Presley, (1986, fourth printing 2002)
7. Coachella Valley Water District - 2005–06 Annual Review & Water Quality Report
★ ''Coachella Valley's Golden Years'', printed by the Coachella Valley Water District, 1978.
External links
★
Coachella Valley Economic Partnership
★
SunLine Transit Agency
★
USBR: Coachella Canal Unit
★
The Coachella Valley Mountains Conservancy
★
Re:Generator Magazine, Coachella Valley's arts and culture magazine
★
Official Coachella Music and Arts Festival site
★
Running in the Coachella Valley
★
Desert United Soccer Club
Media
★
Desert Sun Newspaper
★
Press-Enterprise Newspaper
★
Palm Springs Life Magazine
★
Morris Desert Media
★
CBS2 (KPSP) Desert Television
★
KESQ-TV/KDFX-CA/KUNA-LP
★
KVER and KEVC television
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