In March 1975, approximately 2,000 people from California to Canada descended upon Palm Springs to celebrate their recreation of choice — square dancing. Local resident and 20-year veteran square-dance caller Osa Mathews was on hand to command the couples to do-si-do and box the gnat. During the event, 1,000 couples broke in the enormous maple wood dance floor at the Pavilion in the new Sunrise Park, which turned 50 this year.
In 1894, Dr. Welwood Murray and his wife, Elizabeth, were faced with a question no parent wants to ask: Where should they bury their son, Welwood Erskine Murray, who had died from a respiratory illness at 27? The elder Murray had moved from nearby Banning to Palm Springs on the advice of his friend John McCallum, who in 1884 became the first white settler in Palm Springs.
Desert Dreamers 15: The Wellness Gurus
In a certain film from the 1940s, Capt. Renault, played by Claude Rains, asks Rick, played by Humphrey Bogart, “What in heaven’s name brought you to Casablanca?” Rick responds, “My health. I came to Casablanca for the waters.” “The waters?” Renault asks. “What waters? We’re in the desert.” Says Rick, slyly, “I was misinformed.”
1940s Tennis Star Eleanor Cushingham’s History in Palm Springs
In March 1947, Life magazine sent Peter Stackpole, one of its top photographers, to Palm Springs. His assignment: capture the Little Tuscany home of Raymond Loewy, a champion of industrial design whose achievements ranged from the streamlined Coca-Cola bottle and Lucky Strike cigarette packaging to the Studebaker Avanti and the interiors of the Skylab space station.
Desert Dreamers 13: The Movie Moguls
How Hollywood’s power players stole away to Greater Palm Springs, swapping studio lights for pool parties, croquet showdowns, and frontier-inspired ranch life.
The Making of Palm Springs International ShortFest
As Palm Springs International ShortFest celebrates its 30th anniversary, we pull back the curtain to see how the impressive event comes to life.
Landscape architects design to please the senses, connect with people, and complement the architecture.
One of the Coachella Valley’s first modern power couples brought golf to the desert and style to the clubhouse.
In the 1940s and ’50s, Maynard Parker became the go-to photographer for modernist architects and interior designers and emerged as a star in his own right.
