44 Fun Facts About Palm Springs

Palm Springs lies in which California county?

Riverside County: part of Palm Springs is Agua Caliente tribal land, and development there took off only after a 1959 law allowed long-term leases.

Which Native American people originally inhabited the Palm Springs area?

Cahuilla: in 1876 President Ulysses S. Grant set aside land there as their Agua Caliente reservation, and parts of it lie within the city today.

Tahquitz Canyon, on the western edge of Palm Springs, is best known for what feature?

A 60-foot waterfall: Tahquitz Falls plunges about 60 feet, and in the 1920s the canyon served as an outdoor theatre for the Desert Plays, one based on the legend of Tahquitz.

Why is Palm Springs' reservation land laid out as a checkerboard?

Alternating sections were granted to a railroad: in the 1860s the government gave the Southern Pacific every odd-numbered square mile along its line, leaving the even ones for the tribe.

Which native palm grows wild around Palm Springs?

Fan: the California fan palm is the only palm native to the western US, so the Coachella Valley's date palms all had to be brought in from abroad.

By the 1870s, what did Palm Springs serve as on the road between Los Angeles and Arizona?

A stagecoach station: stages bound for Arizona stopped there, and in the 1880s San Francisco lawyer John McCallum founded the Palm Valley colony that grew into the resort.

Whose 1947 Palm Springs house has a piano-shaped pool?

Frank Sinatra: he asked the architect for a grand Georgian mansion, but when shown a modern design alongside it, he chose the modern house instead.

Which mountain range rises directly west of Palm Springs?

San Jacinto Mountains: in 1935 engineer Francis Crocker, on a hot day in Banning, gazed at their snowy summit and proposed a ride up Chino Canyon, which opened in 1963.

Which major fault runs along the northeast side of the Coachella Valley near Palm Springs?

San Andreas Fault: in one telling of a local legend, the rumblings and quakes around Palm Springs come from Tahquitz, a spirit living in the canyon above town.

Which 1985 comedy filmed at dinosaurs near Palm Springs?

Pee-wee's Big Adventure: Knott's Berry Farm artist Claude Bell began building the dinosaurs in 1964 to draw customers to his Wheel Inn cafe.

The Palm Springs ride up Chino Canyon is the world's largest example of what?

Rotating aerial tramway: its cars slowly turn as they climb, and because only the first of its five towers could be reached by road, builders used helicopters to put up the other four.

Which national park is a short drive from Palm Springs?

Joshua Tree: activist Minerva Hoyt's preservation campaign led President Franklin D. Roosevelt to protect the area as a national monument in 1936.

Which desert lake near Palm Springs formed by accident in 1905?

Salton Sea: with no natural outlet, its water escapes only by evaporation, which leaves the salt behind, so the lake is now saltier than the ocean.

Which architect designed the 1946 Kaufmann Desert House, the mostly-glass modernist landmark?

Richard Neutra: he built it for department store owner Edgar Kaufmann, and after later owners remodelled it, Brent Harris spent years in the 1990s restoring Neutra's design.

Which photographer took 'Poolside Gossip', the 1970 picture shot beside the Kaufmann Desert House pool?

Slim Aarons: his picture made the house famous, and one of the women lounging in it, socialite Nelda Linsk, owned the house.

Which natural feature did Albert Frey build into his hillside Palm Springs house?

A boulder: Frey had the glass cut to fit around a giant rock that separates living and sleeping areas, and he left the house to the Palm Springs Art Museum when he died in 1998.

Which architect designed the butterfly-roofed Twin Palms tract for the Alexander Construction Company?

William Krisel: to make modernism affordable, he gave builders varied roof lines and orientations, so tract houses with similar floor plans looked quite different.

Which two actors opened Palm Springs' Racquet Club in 1934?

Charles Farrell and Ralph Bellamy: their club began as just two tennis courts, then grew into a desert resort where movie people stayed and socialised.

Which entertainer became mayor of Palm Springs in 1988 and later won a seat in Congress?

Sonny Bono: the singer-turned-restaurateur ran for mayor after running into red tape over his restaurant, and in 1994 he was elected to the House.

Which annual Palm Springs event is held each January?

The Film Festival: rising COVID-19 cases forced organisers to cancel its 2022 edition, the second year in a row it was called off.

Which actor bought singer Dinah Shore's former Palm Springs home in 2014?

Leonardo DiCaprio: in 2011 a developer planned up to 50 adaptations of the house's modernist design across the Hamptons.

Which Chinese president met Barack Obama in 2013 at Sunnylands, the Annenberg estate near Palm Springs?

Xi Jinping: Obama held the two-day meeting there for its relaxed, secluded setting, far from the formality of Washington summits.

In which downtown theatre did the Fabulous Palm Springs Follies, with its 55-and-over cast, perform?

The Plaza Theatre: the troupe became the subject of Still Kicking, a short documentary that was nominated for an Oscar.

Which 26-foot Seward Johnson statue has stood in downtown Palm Springs since 2021?

Forever Marilyn: recreating the subway-grate scene from The Seven Year Itch, it stood downtown from 2012 to 2014 and returned in 2021 after tourism group PS Resorts bought it.

Palm Springs Weekend, Warner Bros.' 1963 Easter-vacation comedy, was modelled on which 1960 spring-break hit?

Where the Boys Are: studio boss Jack Warner wanted a similar film, so he sent writer Earl Hamner Jr. to Palm Springs over Easter to poke around for a story.

Who plays Nyles, the wedding guest stuck in a time loop, in the 2020 comedy Palm Springs?

Andy Samberg: at Sundance, Neon and Hulu reportedly paid $17,500,000.69 for the film, topping the festival's record sale by 69 cents.

Palm Springs Art Museum, founded in 1938, originally carried what name?

Palm Springs Desert Museum: it began with natural science exhibits and Native American artifacts, and later renamed itself to reflect its turn to art.

Which late rapper appeared as a projection at Coachella in 2012?

Tupac Shakur: the so-called hologram was really Pepper's ghost, a stage illusion used in theatres since the 19th century, updated with modern projection.

Which general's Desert Training Center covered the whole region during World War II?

Patton: the Army created the vast desert training ground in 1942 to prepare American soldiers to fight Germany's Afrika Korps in the North African desert.

In 2017 Palm Springs elected what kind of council?

The first entirely LGBTQ council: believed to be a US first, it formed when a transgender woman and a bisexual woman won seats, in a city with one of the highest shares of same-sex households.

Who became Palm Springs mayor in 2021, the first openly transgender mayor in California?

Lisa Middleton: under the council's yearly rotation, the mayor pro tem automatically becomes mayor each December, which is how she took the post.

The Sunnylands estate, nicknamed the "Camp David of the West", sits in which neighbouring city?

Rancho Mirage: publisher Walter Annenberg carved the 200-acre estate out of the desert in the 1960s, and President Obama later hosted Jordan's King Abdullah II there.

In which Coachella Valley city is the Coachella music festival held?

Indio: the festival's site, the Empire Polo Club, had proved it could host a big crowd in 1993, when Pearl Jam, feuding with Ticketmaster, drew about 25,000 fans there.

The wind farm greeting drivers arriving in Palm Springs sits at the mouth of which pass?

San Gorgonio: the San Gorgonio Pass Wind Farm, developed from the early 1980s, fills the windy gap at the northwest entrance to the Coachella Valley, one of California's three original wind-resource areas along with Altamont and Tehachapi.

Which architect designed Pearl McCallum's 1924 Oasis Hotel?

Lloyd Wright: he designed it for Pearl McCallum, whose father had moved the family there in the 1880s hoping the dry climate would help his ailing son.

Palm Springs sits in which desert?

Colorado: this low, dry part of the Sonoran Desert includes the Coachella Valley, where canals carrying Colorado River water turned desert into farmland.

Which downtown Palm Springs neighbourhood did the city clear in the 1960s, evicting mostly Black and Latino residents?

Section 14: the city had homes there demolished and burned, and in 2024 the council approved a $5.91 million settlement for former residents and their descendants.

The peak just west of Palm Springs rises roughly how far above the city?

10,000 feet: its summit tops 10,800 feet above sea level, and in the afternoon the sun disappears behind it.

Which Major League Baseball team held spring training in Palm Springs for three decades from 1961?

The Angels: in 1986 the club also moved one of its Class A farm teams to the city, before taking its spring camp to Arizona in the early 1990s.

Which NHL team's AHL affiliate was meant to play in Palm Springs before the arena plan fell through?

Seattle Kraken: after the pandemic shut its casinos, the tribe behind the downtown arena pulled out, so the team plays in Thousand Palms instead.

Which Coachella Valley course, the area's first with 18 holes, hosted the 1955 Ryder Cup?

Thunderbird: amateur golfer Johnny Dawson bought the old Thunderbird Ranch and turned it into the course, which opened in 1951.

Who became Palm Springs' first female mayor and the first openly bisexual US mayor in 2020?

Christy Holstege: elected to the council in 2017, she rose to mayor through the council's yearly rotation, the first woman to hold the post in the city's 82 years.

Which comedian gave his name to the Palm Springs area's golf classic?

Bob Hope: in 1995 he played the tournament's opening round in one group with Bill Clinton and former presidents Gerald Ford and George Bush.

Which historic overland route, running 1862 to 1877, was one of the first transport links to Palm Springs?

Bradshaw Trail: William Bradshaw blazed it in 1862 to carry miners from San Bernardino to the gold fields at La Paz, Arizona.