Coachella Valley Mountains Conservancy

, map_image = Wpdms shdrlfi020l coachella valley.jpg
, map_caption = Coachella Valley
, location = California, United States
, coordinates =
, width =
, boundaries = Salton Sea (southeast), Santa Rosa Mountains (southwest), San Jacinto Mountains (west), Little San Bernardino Mountains (east), San Gorgonio Mountain (north)
, towns = Indio, Palm Springs, Palm Desert
, traversed = Interstate 10

The Coachella Valley ( ) is an arid rift valley in the Colorado Desert of Southern California's Riverside County. The valley may also be referred to as Greater Palm Springs due to the prominence of the city of Palm Springs. The valley extends approximately southeast from the San Gorgonio Pass to the northern shore of the Salton Sea and the neighboring Imperial Valley, and is approximately wide along most of its length. It is bounded on the northeast by the San Bernardino and Little San Bernardino Mountains, and on the southwest by the San Jacinto and Santa Rosa Mountains.

The valley is notable as the location of several wintertime resort cities, especially Palm Springs, that have become popular destinations for snowbirds — people who live in cold climates and seek out warmer weather during winters. The valley is also known for a number of annual events, including the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, the Stagecoach Country Music Festival, and the Riverside County Fair and National Date Festival, all held in Indio. Other events include the Palm Springs Modernism Week, Palm Springs International Film Festival, the ANA Inspiration and Desert Classic golf tournaments, and the Indian Wells Masters tennis tournament.

In addition to Palm Springs and the area's largest city Indio, the valley is home to the resort cities of Cathedral City, Indian Wells, La Quinta, Palm Desert, and Rancho Mirage. As the valley is a major winter destination, its population fluctuates from almost 500,000 in April to around 200,000 in July and around 800,000 by January. It was estimated in 2013 that 3.5 million conventioneers and tourists visit the valley each year.

The Coachella Valley connects with the Greater Los Angeles area to the west via the San Gorgonio Pass, a major transportation corridor, traversed by Interstate 10 and by the Union Pacific Railroad. The Coachella Valley is sometimes called the Desert Empire to differentiate it from the broader Inland Empire.

History

There is some contention as to the origin of the name. Early maps show the area as ''"Conchilla,"'' the Spanish word for "seashell." Since the area was once a part of a vast inland sea, tiny fossilized mollusk shells can be found in the area. Even though the area had been surveyed by Edward Fitzgerald Beale in 1857, whose survey party used camels to cross the desert, primarily along the path of the historic Bradshaw Trail, it was not until the coming of the Southern Pacific Railroad and the discovery of abundant artesian wells later in the 19th century that the area began to expand. Cindarella Courtney was the first non-native American child born in Indio in 1898. The first boy, David Elgin, was born in 1899.

The coming in 1926 of U.S. Route 99 northward through Coachella and Indio and westward toward Los Angeles, more or less along the present route of Interstate 10, helped further open agriculture, commerce and tourism to the rest of the country. So too did the coming of State Highway 111 in the early 1930s, which cut a diagonal swath through the valley and connected all of its major settlements. Dr. June McCarroll, then a nurse with the Southern Pacific whose office fronted U.S. 99 in Indio, is credited with being the first person to delineate a divided highway by painting a stripe down the middle of the roadbed in response to frequent head-on collisions. The standard was refined and adopted worldwide. Doctor McCarroll is memorialized by a stretch of I-10 through Indio named in her honor.

The Coachella Valley became popular among celebrities from Frank Sinatra to Dakota Fanning who came to enjoy vacations and winter homes in the desert resort community. It became a real estate destination in the 1980s and 1990s and has also become a tourist attraction. In a 2003 Condé Nast publication review, Palm Springs was ranked one of the top 10 global vacation destinations, and the smallest among them in population.

Geography

The Coachella Valley is the northernmost extent of the vast Salton Trough, also called the Cahuilla Basin, which includes the Salton Sea, and the Imperial Valley in the United States, as well as the Mexicali Valley and Colorado River Delta in Mexico. The trough is a result of combined tectonic activity of the San Andreas Fault, which follows the northeastern side of the valley, and the East Pacific Rise that runs up through the Gulf of California to the Salton Sea.

The area is surrounded on the southwest by the Santa Rosa Mountains, by the San Jacinto Mountains to the west, the Little San Bernardino Mountains to the east and San Gorgonio Mountain to the north. These mountains peak at around and tend to average between . Elevations on the Valley floor range from above sea level at the north end of the Valley to below sea level around Mecca.

The San Andreas Fault traverses the Valley's east side. Because of this fault, the Valley has many hot springs. The Santa Rosa Mountains to the West are part of the Elsinore Fault Zone. The results of a prehistoric sturzstrom can be seen in Martinez Canyon. The Painted Canyons of Mecca feature smaller faults as well as Precambrian, Tertiary and Quaternary rock formations, unconformities, badlands and desert landforms. Fault lines cause hot water springs or geysers to rise from the ground. These natural water sources made habitation and development possible in the otherwise inhospitable desert environment of the Coachella Valley. Major earthquakes have affected the Coachella Valley. For instance, the 1992 Landers earthquake caused some damage in the valley. An earthquake of local origin which caused considerable damage was the 1986 North Palm Springs earthquake, which registered at a magnitude of 6.0, injuring 29 people and destroying 51 homes.

Climate

In the summer months daytime temperatures range from to and nighttime lows from to . During winter, the daytime temperatures range from to and corresponding nights range from to making it a popular winter resort destination. The surrounding mountains create Thermal Belts in the immediate foothills of the Coachella Valley, leading to higher night-time temperatures in the winter months, and lower daytime temps during the summer months. Due to its warm year-round climate the region's agricultural sector produces fruits such as mangoes, figs and dates.

The Valley is the northwestern extension of the Sonoran Desert to the southeast, and as such, is extremely arid. Most precipitation falls during the winter months from passing mid-latitude frontal systems from the north and west, nearly all of it as rain, but with snow atop the surrounding mountains. Rain also falls during the summer months as surges of moisture from both the Gulf of Mexico and the Gulf of California are drawn into the area by the desert monsoon. Occasionally, the remnants of a Pacific tropical cyclone can also affect the valley. In 1976, Tropical Storm Kathleen brought torrential rain and catastrophic flooding to the Coachella Valley as it swept in from the Pacific, traversing the region from south to north. A haboob powerful enough to have a significant impact on the Coachella Valley can happen every two years.

Ecology

This desert environment hosts a variety of flora and fauna, including the endangered California Fan Palm, ''Washingtonia filifera'', Bighorn sheep inhabit the Santa Rosa and San Jacinto mountain ranges, and the fringe-toed lizard, an indigenous desert reptile whose numbers are increasing under the U.S. Endangered Species Act. Desert wildlife in the Coachella Valley includes localized subspecies of ants, bats, beetles, blackbirds, bobcats, coyotes, diamondbacks, fleas, foxes, gnats, gophers, hawks, horseflies, jackrabbits, kangaroo rats, mosquitoes, mountain lions, pigeons, quails, rattlesnakes, ravens, roaches, roadrunners, scorpions, spiders, termites, ticks, vipers, wasps, whip scorpions or "vinegaroons", and wildcats.

See also:
* Geography of the Colorado Desert
* Fauna of the Colorado Desert
* Sonoran Desert wildflowers
* Coachella Valley Jerusalem Cricket

Demographics

As retirement haven throughout the area's history, a large percentage of residents are age 65 or older. The valley has some of the densest concentrations of senior citizens in California with three of California’s cities with the highest percentages of residents age 65 and older: Indian Wells, Rancho Mirage, and Palm Desert. Though the area is somewhat politically conservative, it is nevertheless renowned for being a community that is known for its inclusion of gays and lesbians as part of a diverse community. Current estimates are that up to 33% of Palm Springs' residents identify as gay and lesbian. Cathedral City is also home to a number of gay resorts, bars, restaurants and clubs. Many establishments along a stretch of Arenas Road in downtown Palm Springs are gay-oriented and serve as the center of the annual White Party. According to an interview with former Palm Springs mayor Ron Oden, perhaps at the time the United States' only openly gay African-American mayor, a large number of people living with HIV (PWH) have moved to the Palm Springs area to take advantage of the extensive health-support systems that have been developed in recent years (such as DAP Health). For this reason, the area has one of the highest per capita rates of HIV in the nation.

The area has a large percentage of Mexican American political figures, plus the state assembly representative Bonnie Garcia of La Quinta is of Puerto Rican parentage.

The Coachella Valley was settled by a diverse array of races and ethnicities. Once viewed as predominantly Caucasian, the Coachella Valley has features of a diverse history. As of 2004, the Claritas study found that 373,100 people resided in the region. The racial makeup was 44.7% Non-Hispanic White, 49.9% Hispanic, 1.8% Black/African American, 2.1% Asian/Pacific Islander, 0.4% American Indian and Inuit, 0.1% from other races, and 1.1% from two or more races.

Early history

In the early 20th century, less than 1,000 full-time residents lived in the "village" of Palm Springs, surrounding farms and ranches, and on the Indian reservation. The 1930 U.S. census found less than half the Coachella Valley's population was "white", the rest were Mexicans especially in the eastern ends when traqueros arrived to maintain the area's railroads, and Native Americans of local tribes in what were then impoverished reservations.

Starting in the 1890s, there was a large Irish and Scottish presence in the region, after Palm Springs was an established agricultural colony called "Palm Valley" cofounded by Welwood Murray, a Scottish immigrant and John Guthrie McCallum, an American from the U.S. East coast. The two men widely advertised the colony to settlers with an interest in a warm climate and the ideal winter residence.

Hispanic community

Hispanic Americans are long established in Palm Springs' central and eastern sections, and have constituted the majority of the populations of Indio and Coachella for many decades. In the 2000 U.S. census, about 35 percent of Coachella Valley residents were Latino. But according to the United States Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, an estimated half (50–60 percent) of the residents are Latino. A large portion of Latinos moving into the area are from the Los Angeles-Orange County and San Diego metro areas.

Most of the valley's Hispanics are Mexican from a multi-generational community (see Chicano), but Central American immigrants (especially in Indio and Cathedral City), Cuban Americans, Puerto Ricans, and South Americans are also numerous (esp. in Rancho Mirage and Palm Desert). Since the late 1980s, the large wave of immigration from neighboring Mexico has culturally impacted the Coachella Valley in many more ways than the rest of California or the country, but the national trend slowed down due to the late 2000s recession.

Most Hispanic immigrants came to obtain work in the area's year-round agriculture, but today many find employment in construction and home remodeling, the resort hospitality industry, landscaping firms, and in the retail sector.

Other racial/ethnic groups

The prominence of Native Americans of the Cahuilla