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Thermal is an
unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a parcel of land that is not governed by a local general-purpose municipal corporation. (At p. 178.) They may be governed or serviced by an encompassing unit (such as a county) or another branch of the state (such as th ...
within the
Coachella Valley The Coachella Valley ( ) is an arid rift valley in the Colorado Desert of Southern California in Riverside County. The valley has been referred to as Greater Palm Springs and occasionally the Palm Springs Area due to the historic promine ...
in
Riverside County, California Riverside County is a County (United States), county located in the Southern California, southern portion of the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 United States Census, 2020 census, its population was 2,418,185, making it the fourth-most ...
, United States, located approximately southeast of
Palm Springs Palm Springs (Cahuilla language, Cahuilla: ''Séc-he'') is a desert resort city in Riverside County, California, United States, within the Colorado Desert's Coachella Valley. The city covers approximately , making it the largest city in Rivers ...
and about north of the
Salton Sea The Salton Sea is a shallow, landlocked, highly salinity, saline endorheic lake in Riverside County, California, Riverside and Imperial County, California, Imperial counties in Southern California. It lies on the San Andreas Fault within the S ...
. The community's elevation is below
mean sea level A mean is a quantity representing the "center" of a collection of numbers and is intermediate to the extreme values of the set of numbers. There are several kinds of means (or "measures of central tendency") in mathematics, especially in statist ...
. It is served by
area codes 760 and 442 Area codes 760 and 442 are telephone area codes in the North American Numbering Plan (NANP) for the U.S. state of California. These area codes serve an overlay complex that comprises much of the southeastern and southernmost portions of Californ ...
and is in ZIP Code 92274. The population was 2,676 at the 2020 census. For statistical purposes, the United States Census Bureau has defined Thermal a
census-designated place A census-designated place (CDP) is a Place (United States Census Bureau), concentration of population defined by the United States Census Bureau for statistical purposes only. CDPs have been used in each decennial census since 1980 as the counte ...
(CDP), which does not precisely correspond to the historical community.


History

On December 30, 1823, Brevet Captain Jose Romero led an expeditionary military expedition finding a route to Tucson from San Gabriel passes in the foothills west of Thermal and Martinez Indian Village (South of Thermal). Thermal (originally Kokell) began as a railroad camp in 1910 for employees of the
Southern Pacific Railroad The Southern Pacific (or Espee from the railroad initials) was an American Railroad classes#Class I, Class I Rail transport, railroad network that existed from 1865 to 1996 and operated largely in the Western United States. The system was oper ...
, followed by
Mecca Mecca, officially Makkah al-Mukarramah, is the capital of Mecca Province in the Hejaz region of western Saudi Arabia; it is the Holiest sites in Islam, holiest city in Islam. It is inland from Jeddah on the Red Sea, in a narrow valley above ...
(originally called Walters) in 1915 and Arabia in between, each with about 1,000 residents. Permanent dwellings were soon established on Avenue 56 (renamed Airport Boulevard), former
U.S. Route 99 U.S. Route 99 (US 99) was a main north–south United States Numbered Highway on the West Coast of the United States until 1964, running from Calexico, California, on the Mexican border to Blaine, Washington, on the Canadian border. It w ...
( State Route 86) and State Route 111 by the 1930s. Agricultural development from canal irrigation made the area thrive in greenery by the 1950s, followed by the former Camp Young U.S. Naval Air station converted into Thermal Airport by 1965. In the early 1990s, a four-lane highway (State Route 86) was constructed over an earlier transportation route. There is a proposal for a major commercial aviation Airport known as the Jackie Cochran- Desert Cities Regional Airport on the same site. The Thermal Club is a members-only motorsports racetrack and club, located just south of the airport. It was built by Tim and Twanna Rogers in partnership with the Kohl family, founders of the
Kohl's Kohl's Corporation (Kohl's is stylized in all caps) is an American department store retail chain store, chain. currently has 1,165 locations, operating stores in every U.S. state except Hawaii. The company was founded by Polish immigrant Maxwe ...
department store chain. The venue opened in 2012, and hosted a non-points
IndyCar Series The IndyCar Series, officially known as the NTT IndyCar Series for sponsorship reasons, is the highest class of American open-wheel car racing in the United States, which has been conducted under the auspices of various sanctioning bodies sinc ...
race in 2024.


Geography

According to the
United States Census Bureau The United States Census Bureau, officially the Bureau of the Census, is a principal agency of the Federal statistical system, U.S. federal statistical system, responsible for producing data about the American people and American economy, econ ...
, the CDP covers an area of 9.5 square miles (25.5 km), all of its land.


Climate

Thermal has a
desert climate The desert climate or arid climate (in the Köppen climate classification ''BWh'' and ''BWk'') is a dry climate sub-type in which there is a severe excess of evaporation over precipitation. The typically bald, rocky, or sandy surfaces in desert ...
(''BWh'' according to the
Köppen climate classification The Köppen climate classification divides Earth climates into five main climate groups, with each group being divided based on patterns of seasonal precipitation and temperature. The five main groups are ''A'' (tropical), ''B'' (arid), ''C'' (te ...
). High mountain ranges on three sides contribute to its unique and year-round warm climate, with some of the warmest winters west of the Rocky Mountains. Its average annual high temperature is and its average annual low is . Summer highs above occur on average 28 days per year and exceed every other year. Summer nights often stay above . Winters are warm with daytime highs rarely below , although light freezes happen every year. The average annual precipitation is under , with over 348 days of sunshine per year. The hottest temperature ever recorded in the area was on July 28, 1995, and the coldest is on December 23, 1990.


Demographics

The 2020 United States census reported that Thermal had a population of 2,676. The population density was . The racial makeup of Thermal was 15.1%
White White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no chroma). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully (or almost fully) reflect and scatter all the visible wa ...
, 0.6%
African American African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from an ...
, 1.6% Native American, 0.9% Asian, 0.0%
Pacific Islander Pacific Islanders, Pasifika, Pasefika, Pacificans, or rarely Pacificers are the peoples of the list of islands in the Pacific Ocean, Pacific Islands. As an ethnic group, ethnic/race (human categorization), racial term, it is used to describe th ...
, 56.4% from other races, and 25.3% from two or more races.
Hispanic or Latino ''Hispanic'' and '' Latino'' are ethnonyms used to refer collectively to the inhabitants of the United States who are of Spanish or Latin American ancestry (). While many use the terms interchangeably, for example, the United States Census Bureau ...
of any race were 94.5% of the population. The census reported that 99.6% of the population lived in households, 0.4% lived in non-institutionalized group quarters, and no one was institutionalized. There were 664 households, out of which 56.0% included children under the age of 18, 54.8% were married-couple households, 7.2% were
cohabiting Cohabitation is an arrangement where people who are not legally married live together as a couple. They are often involved in a romantic or sexually intimate relationship on a long-term or permanent basis. Such arrangements have become incr ...
couple households, 21.8% had a female householder with no partner present, and 16.1% had a male householder with no partner present. 13.6% of households were one person, and 6.0% were one person aged 65 or older. The average household size was 4.01. There were 554
families Family (from ) is a group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or affinity (by marriage or other relationship). It forms the basis for social order. Ideally, families offer predictability, structure, and safety as ...
(83.4% of all households). The age distribution was 32.5% under the age of 18, 10.2% aged 18 to 24, 27.1% aged 25 to 44, 21.1% aged 45 to 64, and 9.0% who were 65years of age or older. The median age was 29.6years. For every 100 females, there were 108.6 males. There were 719 housing units at an average density of , of which 664 (92.4%) were occupied. Of these, 48.8% were owner-occupied, and 51.2% were occupied by renters.


Education

There are several schools in the
Coachella Valley Unified School District The Coachella Valley Unified School District is a public school district in Riverside County, California and Imperial County, California, United States, with headquarters in Thermal. The District serves a area, including the cities of Coachella ...
that are in and near the community. These include schools in Salton City, 20 miles south of Coachella, in
Imperial County, California Imperial County is a county located on the southeast border of the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 179,702, ranking as the least populous county in Southern California. The county seat and largest city is ...
. In Thermal, they are Westside Elementary (K-6), Oasis Elementary (K-8), Mountain Vista Elementary (K-6), Saul Martinez Elementary (K-6), Mecca Elementary (K-6), Edward Park Elementary (K-5), Toro Canyon Middle (6–8), Bobby Duke Middle (6–8), John Kelley Elementary (K-6), Coachella Valley High (9–12), Cesar Chavez Elementary (K-6), Cahuilla Desert Academy (Junior High: 7th and 8th grade), Desert Mirage High School (9–12), West Shores High School (9–12) and La Familia Continuation High (9–12).
College of the Desert College of the Desert (COD) is a public community college in Palm Desert, California. COD enrolls about 12,500 students, of which around one third attend college full-time. It serves the Coachella Valley of Riverside County. The college is feder ...
, a community college based in
Palm Desert Palm Desert is a city in the Coachella Valley region of Riverside County, California. The city is located in the Colorado Desert arm of the Sonoran Desert, about east of Palm Springs, northeast of San Diego and east of Los Angeles. The populat ...
has opened a new satellite campus, the East Valley Educational Center, on the corner of 62nd Avenue and Buchanan Street.


Infrastructure


Transportation

Jacqueline Cochran Regional Airport (formerly Thermal Airport) is located about 1.6 miles southwest of the community. The
Union Pacific Railroad The Union Pacific Railroad is a Railroad classes, Class I freight-hauling railroad that operates 8,300 locomotives over routes in 23 U.S. states west of Chicago and New Orleans. Union Pacific is the second largest railroad in the United Stat ...
owns and operates the former
Southern Pacific Railroad The Southern Pacific (or Espee from the railroad initials) was an American Railroad classes#Class I, Class I Rail transport, railroad network that existed from 1865 to 1996 and operated largely in the Western United States. The system was oper ...
mainline through Thermal. The region is served by a two-lane expressway.
California State Route 86 State Route 86 (SR 86) is a north–south state highway in the U.S. State of California that connects the Imperial and Coachella valleys in the southeastern desert region of the state. It runs from State Route 111 near the Mexican border ...
and
California State Route 111 State Route 111 (SR 111) is a state highway in the southeastern part of U.S. state of California. It is a north-south route serving the Imperial Valley, the eastern shore of the Salton Sea, and the Coachella Valley. Its southern terminus is at I ...
are modern transportation corridors that serve as a fruit shipping and international trucking route to connect with
Interstate 10 Interstate 10 (I-10) is the southernmost transcontinental highway in the Interstate Highway System of the United States. It is the fourth-longest Interstate in the country at , following I-90, I-80, and I-40. It was part of the origina ...
in
Indio Indio may refer to: Places * Indio, Bovey Tracey, an historic estate in Devon, England * Indio, California, a city in Riverside County, California, United States People with the name * Indio (musician), Canadian musician Gordon Peterson * Índi ...
.


Cemeteries

The Toro Cemetery is located on Monroe Street. The
Torres-Martinez Desert Cahuilla Indians The Torres Martinez Desert Cahuilla Indians is a federally recognized tribe of Cahuilla Indians, located in Imperial and Riverside counties in California.


Thermal Club

The Thermal Club is a private motorsports facility situated on south of Thermal. This private country club for automotive enthusiasts plans to build a with 300 lots for member-owned garages and villas. the first was in use by early members and for media and promotional events with two more courses planned. In 2017, BMW completed construction of their BMW Performance Driving Center West, which is home to the BMW Performance Driving School. In March 2024 the club hosted the
$1 Million Challenge, a special non-championship
all-star An all-star team is a group of people all having a high level of performance in their field. Originating in sports, it has since drifted into vernacular and has been borrowed heavily by the entertainment industry. Sports "All-star" as a sport ...
race for the
2024 IndyCar Series The 2024 NTT IndyCar Series was the 113th official championship season of American Championship car racing, American open wheel racing and the 29th season under IndyCar Series sanction. Its showcase event was the 2024 Indianapolis 500, 108th ru ...
. For the 2025 season, this race became a points-paying race.


References

* Nordland, Ole J., ''History of the Coachella Valley County Water District, Second Ed.'', (Coachella, California: Coachella Valley Water District, 1978). * Map: "Road Map of California, 1958," (Sacramento, California: State of California, Department of Public Works, Division of Highways). * ''California Region Timetable: 14'', (Modesto, California: Altamont Press, 2003). * U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Educational Statistics


Notes


External links

* {{authority control Census-designated places in Riverside County, California Populated places in the Colorado Desert Coachella Valley Census-designated places in California