Two hours from the Hollywood studios, Palm Springs became a movie-colony retreat in the 1920s and '30s, and after the war it turned into something the world had never quite seen: the capital of mid-century modern design. Through the 1940s, '50s, and '60s, architects filled the desert with glass-walled houses, folded-plate roofs, and breeze-block screens — the style now called Desert Modernism, and still the densest concentration of preserved mid-century modern architecture in the country. In 1963 the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway opened, climbing the sheer cliffs of Chino Canyon to Mount San Jacinto State Park; rebuilt with rotating cars in 2000, it remains the world's largest rotating tramcar. Each February, Modernism Week — founded in 2006 — brings a global design crowd back to the butterfly roofs.
The hot mineral springs the Cahuilla called "Se-Khi," and the fan-palm oases of the canyons that still carry their name, made this stretch of desert livable for thousands of years; the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians are its original inhabitants and stewards. In 1884 John Guthrie McCallum became the first permanent non-Native settler, building the adobe that is still the city's oldest standing structure and digging irrigation ditches to green the valley floor. A health-resort era followed — the Desert Inn opened in 1909 — and on the strength of its dry air and warm springs the desert stop grew into a winter resort. Palm Springs incorporated as a city in 1938.
Why People Visit Palm Springs California
- Ride the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway up Chino Canyon to the cooler pine forests of Mount San Jacinto State Park.
- Hike the Indian Canyons, the Cahuilla fan-palm oases with stream-fed trails.
- Tour the mid-century modern neighborhoods — and time a visit for Modernism Week in February.
- Stroll Palm Canyon Drive downtown for galleries, design shops, and classic facades.
- Wander Moorten Botanical Garden and the Palm Springs Art Museum.
- Detour west to the roadside Cabazon Dinosaurs (in Cabazon, about 20 minutes away) or out to Joshua Tree National Park.
