In 1887, twenty-five dollars bought a round-trip ticket on an excursion train from San Francisco to Palm Springs, “the only spot in California where frost, fog and windstorms are absolutely unknown,” according to a real estate advertisement of the day. Mule-drawn buckboards carried passengers from the train station to the Palm Springs Hotel, where they played bridge and drank beer under the palms, soaked in hot mineral pools inside a rickety wooden bathhouse, and picnicked in the Indian Canyons.

In the glamorous Hollywood heyday of the 1920s and 1930s, Errol Flynn, Ginger Rogers and their movie star cohorts routinely made the 100-mile trek over the mountains to Palm Springs in unairconditioned cars to relax at the tiny, Spanish-style La Quinta Hotel. They basked in dry, warm air and played on the nine-hole golf course, the first in the valley, for the green fee of a dollar. (Click here to read the article in full)