Palm Spring: The Desert Crossroads

Long before asphalt crossed the Anza-Borrego desert, this palm-shaded spring was one of the most important stops in the American Southwest. From eighteen twenty-six through eighteen sixty-six, an astonishing parade of travelers drank from this water. Mexican rancheros and mountain men came first, followed by the United States Army of the West marching toward California in eighteen forty-six.

The Mormon Battalion passed here. Boundary Commission surveyors mapped it. Forty-Niners racing to the gold fields paused to water their stock.

Railway survey crews evaluated it as a possible transcontinental route. And twice-weekly Butterfield Overland Mail coaches rolled through on their twenty-five-day run from Saint Louis to San Francisco. For four decades this single desert spring made overland California travel possible.