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For anyone who is interested in the history of our beautiful Valley, the Coachella Valley Historical Society's "The Periscope" magazine fits to a "T"!! Every year, the Society publishes a book with a unique theme about a special person, period of time, or an event in the history of our Valley. Each issue is $12.00.

The Periscope 2001 - Coachella Valley During World War II

Materials from the archives include newspaper articles written by Paul Wilhelm after the war, a formerly restricted document from an Army historian assessing the impact of Camp Young on the valley, and several letters written to Mrs. Schmid by a member of the American Red Cross who was stationed at Camp Young and who came to love the area. These materials and photographs from Coachella Valley Historical Society files, from the collections of the Palm Springs Historical Society and the Palm Desert Historical Society make up this publication. There is a wonderul scrapbook of newspaper clippings about our valley's servicemen, and our file of newspapers of that era are full of stories of their heroism and devotion to their country.

It's worth mentioning, how, the newspaper of August 16, 1945 reported the end of the war,

     "Indio celebrated V-J Day with a 'blaze of tooting horns, shouts of "It's over," screaming youngsters and fire and police sirens. Chief McCausland and his  big fire whistle kept informing folks every few minutes throughout the night and into Wednesday morning that the war was over."

Also worth mentioning, for its impact on the valley, is the fact that many of the servicemen and women who first saw the Coachella Valley during World War II have come back to be among its most loyal residents.

The Periscope 2002 - Early Newspapers

Bill Jennings, writing for the Riverside Daily Enterprise on April 27, 1967, recounted the story of the first newspaper published in the Coachella Valley. a marker to commemorate the event was dedicated by the Coachella Valley Historical Society and placed on Bliss Street near the corner of Fargo Street, almost on the exact site of that first printing office. Jennings' article tates, "Unless you count a few now-priceless special circulars put out by early land speculators, Coachella Valley's first true newspaper did not appear until December 13, 1901." The marker was placed as close to the actual site of the publishing headquarters of The Submarine, written, edited and printed on an old Michle Snapper hand press by Ronald R. Freeman. Freeman promptly made national copy with his claim the The Submarine was "the most low-down paper on earth, published every Friday." He was referring to his tent, located 22 feet below sea-level.

"His first plant was really a tent, according to one of the few people around who still remembered, Otho Moore, co-founder and vice-president of the historical society. According to Moore, the tent worked fine unless the sand blew and the sand got into the press, 'then it was a real mess.'

"Freeman was solvent enough, eventually to move into a nearby building, and finally the paper, under new ownership moved to Coachella. From 1914-1916 the late Senator Nelson Dilworth, Riverside County Assemblyman and State Senator for 26 years, edited The Submarine. Later the paper was absorbed by another weekly which for years carried Freeman's slogan, on the front page, as he had.

"The bronze used in the plaque on the stone marker was secured by Ole J. Nordland, former managing editor of the old Indio Date Palm, from the matrices or metal mats used in a line-casting machine, successor to the handset type of the original Submarine.The matrices came indirectly from the Indio Date Palm. The Indio paper, now absorbed by The Daily News, began publishing in 1912 and was the valley's second successful weekly."

The Periscope 2003 - Early Schools

The theme for 2003 seems appropriate because this year will see the completion of the basic renovation of Indio's 1909 schoolhouse. Most of us have memories of our own school days, but we cannot go back to visit our particular school, because it no longer exists. When the inside renovation is complete, today's children and adults can experience the third oldest school in the Coachella Valley. Interestingly, the first school built in the valley was in Palm Springs. The year was 1893, when there was a thriving farming community there, and the Coachella Valley was called Palm Valley and it was a part of San Diego County.

Newspaper accounts from papers kept in the Archives of the Society have provided most of the material for this publication. In addition, a number of earlier editions of the Periscope furnished appropriate material, as well as various other books and publications. Actually, some of the interviews done with early residents in the 1980's were very helpful.

The Periscope 2004 - Jacqueline Cochran

Jacqueline Cochran was indeed an amazing woman - the embodiment of the American dream of great accomplishment in spite of an impoverished childhood. What she was able to do through her own determination, skill and courage is legendary. A summary is included in this 2004 Periscope. This story, however, will focus not on her well-deserved and well-documented aviation honors. Rather, this story will tell something about her life here in the Coachella Valley - a life that spanned the same forty years and more. After each of her aviation achievements she came back to the ranch she and her husband, Floyd Odlum, developed on Monroe Street, just south of Indio. this was her well-loved "home", even though the couple kept a luxurious apartment in New York City as well. Jackie brought fame to the Coachella Valley, and she brought the rich and famous to her ranch home, but she had time for her neighbors as well. their stories and pictures make up this publication.

Many of the photos are from the Archives of the Coachella Valley Historical Society, but particular mention should be made of the very special pictures loaned by George Marshall. His father and mother helped develop the ranch in the 1930's and early 40's and his candid photos of Amelia Earhart are a rare find.

The Periscope 2005 - Water Stories

"The Power of Water Is Far Greater Than That Of Gold And Silver" observed Coachella Valley naturalist, Paul Wilhelm. "It is the one thing on this little oasis earth without which we cannot live for long. On hot desert sands, dehydrated seekers of the yellow metal do not cry out for the gold that lured them there; they cry for water." Perhaps only people of a desert look upon water with such respect.

This year our Periscope is about the influence of water on the history and development of the Coachella Valley. Our publication is divided into four sections. The first deals with uncontrolled water, a problem that had to be solved or the floor of the valley could never have been developed.The second section is a brief history of the formation of our largest body of water - the Salton Sea. In the 1930's, the big "water story" was the construction of the Metropolitan Aqueduct through the Coachella Valley. Although the water was destined for the coastal plain of Southern California, the hard-rock mining activity in our eastern mountains was the big news in the Coachella Valley in those depression days. It is our third "water story." Finally, section four deals with the successful quest for supplementary water, culminating in the delivery of Colorado River water to the Coachella Valley in 1948. Reclamation was a relatively new idea in the early 1900's and its merits had to be sold to a Congress made up of Easterners and Midwesterners. The story is told in abbreviated form here, mentioning especially the local efforts in support of the Boulder Canyon Project and the All-American Canal.

The Periscope 2006 - In the Beginning....The Story of Dates

The date palm is the signature tree of the Coachella Valley. Not only are the beautiful commercial date gardens unique, but almost every residential and business development uses them for landscaping. The fruit has been an important part of the agricultural production of the valley and in the past, dozens of "date shops" were a tourist attraction. In 2006, few of those retail shops are left, but the trees remain, furnishing fruit for the wholesale market, and tall trees for the golf course, condominium, shopping center, and housing developments.

Interestingly, the Coachella Valley is the place best suited to date culture in the entire United States. Small acreages were successful in the Phoenix and Yuma areas, but this Salton Basin had the climate, soil and water that the date palm needs to produce well. It seemed appropriate to the Coachella Valley Historical Society Board of Directors to give recognition to the importance of this plant in the history of the world, and to the daring men who traveled to the desert areas of the Old World to secure the best varieties for commercial plantings here. Accordingly, the Board has embarked on a project to establish a Date Museum in Indio. They also decided that this was an appropriate subject for the 2006 Periscope.

When early settlers bean supposing that dates might be a good crop for this newly developing desert area, they tried planting date seeds, but the fruit was not uniform or readily marketable. Consequently, they soon realized that they needed to import offshoots (the suckers which grow out around the base of a date palm) to get good fruit. This issue of the Periscope will begin a two-part story of the securing of date palm offshoots to begin a viable commercial industry. It begins with a brief history of the importance of the date palm in the Old World, then includes an early history of the date industry in the United States by Roy Nixon, for many years the date expert at the United States Department of Agriculture Date and Citrus Station in Indio, and concludes with a start on "the rest of the story." This Periscope could only include the personalities who actually went overseas to get the plants, or who worked in the very beginning. Part II will tell the story of the USDA Station and the local growers who were part of this new industry.

It should be noted that U.S. date varieties have kept their Arabic names, spelling them phonetically in English. Therefore sometimes there are several spellings for the same word.

The Periscope - Salton Sea California's Overlooked Treasure

The story of the Salton Sea begins with the formation of a great shallow depression, or basin which modern explorers have called the Salton Sink. Several million years ago a long arm of the Pacific Ocean extended from the Gulf of California through the present Imperial and Coachella valleys, then northwesterly through the Sacramento and San Joaquin valleys. Mountain ranges rose on either side of this great inland sea, and the whole area came up out of the water. Oyster beds in the San Felipe Mountains, on the west side of Imperial Valley are located many hundreds of feet above present sea level. Slowly the land in the central portion settled, and the area south of San Gorgonio Pass sloped gradually down to the Gulf.

If it had not been affected by external forces, it would probably have kept its original contours, but it just so happened that on its eastern side there emptied one of the mightiest rivers of the North American continent - the Colorado. The river built a delta across the upper part of the Gulf, turning that area into a great salt water lake. It covered almost 2100 square miles.

How could a river cut a gulf in two? the watershed of the Colorado river covers 260,000 square miles, from the southern edge of Yellowstone Park to the Gulf of California. It held in suspension and carried down to the sea millions of tons of solid matter as it scoured out such natural wonders as the Grand Canyon. It deposited this vast quantity of silt into the Gulf opposite its mouth and the deposits eventually reached clear to the opposite side, from Yuma to the rampart of the Cocopah Mountains. The delta was ten miles wide by thirty in length. The river then chose for itself a route on the southeastern side of the delta plain, discharging its waters into the Gulf of California. Under the blazing sun, water in the upper Gulf evaporated, leaving an arid basin incrusted with salt in its deeper parts. The depression was about one hundred miles in length by thirty-five in width. It had a meximum depth of 1,000 feet.

Since 1905 the Salton Sea has been a special place for the citizens of both the Imperial and Coachella Valleys. However, prior to the arrival of the Colorado River, a very interesting history does exist.  It is the purpose of this Periscope to tell the whole story of the Sea. Whether it is called Ancient Lake Cahuilla, Blake's Lake, The Salton Sink or the Salton Sea, there has been uncovered many interesting facets of its development.

The Periscope 2008 - Pinyon and the Santa Rosa Mountains

This year's Periscope is the most detailed account ever assembled of early days in Pinyon, a community in the local mountains on Highway 74 above Palm Desert. The author, Harry M. Quinn, grew up surrounded by legendary mountain characters. He had a rare knack for listening to adults, memorizing both their anecdotes and their quirks of personality. The combination makes for compelling history.

Quinn was introduced to the Pinyon flats area in 1941 by his grandparents, Harry and Mary Elizabeth Caldwell. they first stayed in a tent in the Pinyon Flats and Hurkey Creek Campgrounds. In December of 1941 the Caldwells purchased the Chaffey Grant Estate cabin in the Pinyon Pines (then often called Nightingale) subdivision and he has been going there off and on ever since.