Palm Springs: the Desert de Luxe

PALM SPRINGS— THE DESERT DE LUXE By Elizabeth Cannon Porter On Christmas day, eighty years ago, the men of the Mormon Battalion camped in the vicinity of Palm Springs, California. Theirs had been a memorable trip over unexplored deserts where food was scarce and water for long distances unobtainable. These men sent between $5,000 and $6,000 back to their refugee families in Winter Quarters. Of the 500 who enlisted (mostly young men), 150 were invalided out before California was reached. The Mexican war was over before they reached San Diego, so they helped Palm' Springs Desert Inn: With cool, Spanish interiors, and red-tiled roofs, the dwellings conform to desert architecture. raise the American flag on the Pacific coast. It took most of them a year to make their way back to rejoin their families in Utah and Nebraska. Long before this, the early Spanish fathers had navigated these same treacherous sands to the "Land of Bright Colors" in search of souls. Even today the traveler must be specially prepared to combat its dangers else he perish on the desert. Cruel and gray it is, like dead lips drawn back from parching jaws, yet with a lure and mystery all its own. At times it masquerades in borrowed colors — silver, or gold, or American Beauty rose, with purple shadows. The sunrise is shot with orange and azure and Nile green: at night one can almost

PALM SPRINGS— THE DESERT DE LUXE 191 Palm canyon: The spring waters of this canyon were supposed to have medicinal qualities, according to the Indians. reach up and pluck the stars from the heavens, so low they seem to hang. Palm Springs lies in an estuary of this Great American Desert. It has been called "A Bit of Araby," and the /'Garden of the Sun." It is not generally known that America has a Passion Play of its own, but the Mission Indians here enact the 2,000-year-old story of the Life of Christ with a dusky Magdalene, and aboriginal Peter. These are the same descendants of Laman who a few centuries back impor- tuned the Rain God for moisture. The play is staged in .the natural setting of the canyon where the age-old palm trees stand with their feet in the water and their heads in the sun. This naturally warm water of the canyon stream was reputed by the Indians to have curative powers'. Today consumptives seek its arid atmosphere, but for the most part Palm Springs has been discovered by millionaires and movie stars. The architecture of the town conforms to desert needs, mostly cool Spanish interiors and red-tiled roofs. Palm Springs is a Winter, not a Summer resort. In February the desert is abloom with wild flowers, the ground carpeted with the gorgeous tapestry of the wild verbenas. The Spanish Bayonet Yucca rears its stately spear against the mountainside. The pious Indians siaw in the transcendent beauty of its white blossoms the "Candles of the Lord."