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The elegant resort city of Palm Springs is located at the foot of Santa Rosa Mountains in southern California, at the westernmost wing of the Sonoran Desert. This luxurious desert city, lie at the base of 10,000-foot Mt. San Jacinto, in a spot well-known for its hot springs.
Palm Springs is secluded by the San Jacinto Mountains to the west, the Santa Rosa Mountains on the south, and the Little San Bernardino Mountains to the north. This natural features provide Palm Springs its legendary warm, dry type of weather. The city is famous for 354 days of sunshine and less than 6 inches of rain yearly. The arid desert temperature of summer impels daytime heat to the 100’s.
About 2,000 years back, Palm Springs' earliest inhabitants were the ancestors of these days’ Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians. The Agua Calientes are nonviolent hunters and gatherers, adjusting to the radical desert summers and mountain winters. A good deal of clannish living focus around the fertile vegetation and plentiful water in the spot branded as Indian Canyons, North America's largest natural fan palm oases.
A government survey party sited Palm Springs and its innate hot springs mineral pool and set up the earliest wagon course through the San Gorgonio Pass in 1853.
In 1877, as a motivation to put the last touches on a railroad to the Pacific, the U.S. government gave Southern Pacific Railroad as name to the odd-numbered parcels of land for 10 miles of the tracks on the Southern California desert around Palm Springs. The even-numbered parcels of land were handed over to the Agua Calientes, but federal law forbided them from leasing or selling the land to obtain profits from it.
The first non-Indian settler, Judge John Guthrie Mc Callum purchased land from Southern Pacific and built an elaborate aqueduct when he arrived in Palm Springs in 1884. Soon after, Dr Welwood Murray built the first hotel, The Palm Springs Hotel, in 1886.
Palm Springs kept on fascinating more guests and non-Indian people, but was not until President Eisenhower approved the Equalization Law in 1959 that ethnic groups could take in income from their domain. Throughout these years Palm Springs developed swiftly.
In 1909, Nellie Coffman's Desert Inn set off. By the time it was integrated in 1938, the Village of Palm Springs became world renowned as a winter spot for Hollywood stars, European royalty and business tycoons, all who visited to take pleasure in the never-ending sunshine and tranquility of the desert.
Throughout World War II, the desert turned out to be training grounds for General George S. Patton's troops for their preparation to attack North Africa. El Mirador Hotel, the place of today's Desert Regional Medical Center, operated as Torney General Hospital. Italian prisoners of war, boarded at the adjacent imprisonment site, toiled at the hospital.
The airdrome, constructed to deal in military cargo and personnel planes became Palm Springs Regional Airport. As it welcomes the 21st century, Palm Springs International Airport started its flights nationwide and to Canada.
The post-war period lead to remarkable development as Palm Springs' natural setting was not anymore a mystery of just the prosperous. Tourist spots and resorts boomed with the growth in tourism. Improvement reached throughout the valley. With the dawn of air-conditioning, guests and populace settled all year-round.
These days, the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians is a fundamental part of the Palm Springs village. Independently and as a clan, the Agua Calientes are the prevalent property-owner in the city with almost 6,700 acres within the town restrictions. Several hotels and amenities are located on leased Indian lands. The Spa Hotel and Casino is just an example of the economic growth of the Aqua Caliente.
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