Palm Springs

A bit of history

Judge John Guthrie McCallum established the Palm Valley Colony on the site in 1884, and the opening of the Desert Inn in 1909 turned the area into a retreat for visitors seeking relief from respiratory ailments in the dry desert climate. Palm Springs incorporated as a city on April 20, 1938, after voters approved the measure that April by a margin of 442 to 211. Starting in the 1930s, film stars such as Charles Farrell and Ralph Bellamy, who opened The Racquet Club in 1934, helped draw Hollywood's elite to build vacation homes, and architects including Richard Neutra used the city's wealthy clientele to pioneer midcentury modern design, exemplified by the 1946 Kaufmann Desert House.