Cabot's Pueblo Museum

Cabot's Pueblo Museum is an American historic house museum located in Desert Hot Springs, California, and built by Cabot Yerxa, an early pioneer of the Colorado Desert. A large, Hopi-style pueblo, built in the Pueblo Revival Style, it contains artworks, artifacts of American Indian and Alaska Native cultures, and memorabilia of early desert homesteader life. The museum may also be referred to as Cabot's Old Indian Pueblo Museum, Cabot's Trading Post or Yerxa's Discovery.

Origins of the name

The house and surrounding structures were self-built by Cabot Abram Yerxa (1883–1965),Palm Springs Cemetery District, "Interments of Interest"
/ref> an early 20th-century homesteader in the Coachella Valley.Yerxa was born on a Lakota Sioux reservation in the Dakota Territory. Before starting the Pueblo, he traveled to Alaska to sell cigars during the Nome Gold Rush, Cuba to develop real estate, and Mexico. His family owned an orange grove in Riverside, California, but lost the crop to freezing in 1913. During World War I, he served in the U.S. Army. Later he worked as the postmaster of Sierra Madre, California. His parents were long established in New England and New Brunswick. (Brown 2011, pp. 11–12.)
Yerxa also subdivided property to create the town of Desert Hot Springs. (
here for Table of Contents
)
The Palm Springs Unified School Districtbr>Cabot Yerxa Elementary School
in Desert Hot Springs is named in his honor. It is named as "Cabot’s Old Indian Pueblo Museum" in its application for listing on the National Register of Historic Places. The California State Parks Office of Historic Preservation lists it as "Yerxa's Discovery".

History

Yerxa was an adventurer who first settled on in Southern California's Coachella Valley in 1913. He established his home, The Eagle's Nest, on a hill he would later name Miracle Hill. Using a pick and shovel to dig wells, Yerxa discovered two aquifers on opposite sides of the hill, which happened to be separated by the Mission Creek Fault, a branch of the San Andreas Fault. The first aquifer was a natural hot spring with a temperature of 110 °F (43 °C) in the Desert Hot Springs Sub- Basin and which would later help give rise to the area's spas and resorts. The second, on the opposite side of the fault, was a cold aquifer of the Mission Springs Sub- Basin. This same aquifer provides fresh water to the city of Desert Hot Springs and has received awards for exceptional taste.

In May, 1917, Yerxa left the desert to join the Army during World War I. He returned to the desert in 1937, and in 1939 began building a museum to house his collection of Native American and other artifacts. He fashioned the building as a Hopi Indian pueblo in honor of the Indian people, and he opened ''Cabot's Old Indian Pueblo'' in 1950. He operated it with his wife, Portia, until his death in 1965. Upon his death Portia returned to her native Texas and the structure was abandoned.

Yerxa's friend Cole Eyraud protected the settlement after his death and after it had been abandoned and vandalized.Cole Eyraud was a Burbank businessman who knew Yerxa in the past. Upon discovering the abandoned Pueblo, he purchased the complex and established Landmark Conservators to preserve the landmark. (Landmark Conservators
California Secretary of State Entity Number: C0561941, Filed: 01/29/1969
) (Minckler 1986, p. 23.) Eyraud and his family purchased the complex, restoring it and later donating it to the City of Desert Hot Springs.

Architecture

The centerpiece of the complex is a large, Hopi-style pueblo, in the Pueblo Revival Style of architecture. The main building is a four-story, 5000 square foot (465 sq.m) structure with 35 rooms, 150 windows, 65 doors and 30 different roof levels. The pueblo and all the outbuildings on the site were built primarily from scrap wood and sheet metal all scavenged from the surrounding desert by Yerxa. It has a system of vents and shafts built into the walls to keep it cool in the summer.

Exhibits

Collections

Among the collections of the museum are:
* America Indian and Alaska Native artifacts, including Native American pottery
* Artwork of Yerxa
* Documents, including photographs and Yerxa related correspondence

''Waokiye''

A later addition to the site is that of the ''Waokiye'', or "traditional helper" in the Lakota language. ''Waokiye'' is the twenty-seventh sculpture in a series of 74 giant Native American heads, collectively known as the ''Trail of the Whispering Giants'', carved during a twenty-one-year period by artist Peter Wolf Toth. The 43-foot sculpture was carved with the use of power tools from a section of a 45-ton (46 metric ton) giant sequoia log. The 750-year-old tree, which originally stood in Sequoia National Park, had been felled by lightning in the mid-1950s. All but the feather in ''Waokiyes headband was carved from the log. The feather was carved from an incense cedar from the nearby mountain community of Idyllwild. The statue was unveiled on May 20, 1978; it was repaired and rededicated by Toth on February 21, 2009. At present, it is the only one of the sculptures left in California.

Operations

Owners

The City of Desert Hot Springs owns the museum and it is operated by the Cabot's Museum Foundation, a non-profit corporation. Cabot's Museum Foundation is a member of the American Alliance of Museums.

Cabot’s Trading Post & Gallery

In 2008 the Museum Foundation opened "Cabot's Trading Post & Gallery" to feature artwork from local artists.

Location

The museum is located at 67-616 East Desert View Avenue, in Desert Hot Springs, California, a spa resort town north of Palm Springs, California. Line 14 of the SunLine Transit Agency serves Desert Hot Springs from Palm Springs.

Solar panels

A set of 24 solar panels on a nearby hillside provides electric power to the museum.

Future plans

The museum is developing plans to expand visitor facilities including an amphitheater, hiking trails, and a cultural campus.

Preservation of artifacts

In 2009 numerous artifacts from the pueblo were removed to an undisclosed location. In 2010 the Balboa Art Conservation Center of San Diego, California, conducted a study of the museum and reported that improvements in air filtration, lighting, and landscape irrigation were needed.

Notes

References

Bibliography

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** Reprinted as
* ; Also available at

Further reading

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Pojawa, Jane, ''What's Up on Miracle Hill'' (index)
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External links

Cabot's Pueblo Museum website





Huell Howser Productions, Palm Springs Series, Show 17
Huell Howser's PBS ''California's Gold'' 2002 visit to Cabot's Adobe (available as a VHS videorecodging – )
** Also available at: {{cite web, last=Howser, first=Huell, title=Cabot's Adobe – Palm Springs Week (17), url=http://blogs.chapman.edu/huell-howser-archives/2002/09/26/cabots-adobe-palm-springs-week-17/, work=California's Gold, publisher=Chapman University Huell Howser Archive, author-link=Huell Howser, date=September 26, 2002

Pojawa, Jane (June 4, 2008), "Cabot Yerxa: True Confessions of a Research Addict"
retrieved November 8, 2011

Museums in Riverside County, California
Desert Hot Springs, California
American West museums in California
Historic house museums in California
Houses in Riverside County, California
Native American museums in California
Outdoor sculptures in California
Sculpture gardens, trails and parks in California
Biographical museums in the United States
Landmarks of Riverside County, California
National Register of Historic Places in Riverside County, California
History of Riverside County, California
1945 establishments in California
Museums established in 1945
1940s architecture in the United States
Coachella Valley
Colorado Desert
Pueblo Revival architecture