Palm Desert is a city in Riverside County, California, United States, in the Coachella Valley, approximately 14 miles (23 km) east of Palm Springs, 121 miles (195 km) northeast of San Diego and 122 miles (196 km) east of Los Angeles. Take a look below for 20 interesting and amazing facts about Palm Desert, California, United States.
1. The population was 48,445 at the 2010 census, up from 41,155 at the 2000 census.
2. The city was one of the state’s fastest growing in the 1980s and 1990s, beginning with 11,801 residents in 1980, doubling to 23,650 in 1990, 35,000 in 1995, and nearly double its 1990 population by 2000.
3. A major center of growth in the Coachella Valley, Palm Desert is a popular retreat for “snowbirds” from colder climates (the Eastern and Northern United States, and Canada), who swell its population by an estimated 31,000 each winter.
4. Palm Desert has seen more residents become “full-timers”, mainly from the coasts and urban centers of California, who have come for both affordable and high-valued homes.
5. The ancestral homeland of Cahuilla, a division of the Morongo Band of Mission Indians. Their bird songs and funeral songs share the oral tradition of how they were present on these lands for over 10,000 years.
6. The area was first known as the Old MacDonald Ranch, but the name changed to Palm Village in the 1920s when date palms were planted.
7. Local historians said the main residents of pre-1950 Palm Desert were Cahuilla Indian farmers of the now extinct San Cayetano tribe, but a few members of the Montoya family of Cahuilla/Spanish descent were prominent leaders in civic life.
8. The first residential development occurred in 1943 in connection with an Army maintenance camp in the area.
9. That site was later developed into “El Paseo”, an upscale shopping district not unlike Rodeo Drive. In 1948, the Palm Desert Corporation began to develop real estate, and in 1951 the area was given its present name.
10. According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 27.0 square miles (70 km2), of which, 26.8 square miles (69 km2) of it is land and 0.2 square miles (0.52 km2) of it (0.76%) is water.
11. The elevation (City hall) is 224 feet (68 m) above sea level. Elevations vary from the lower northern half once covered in sand dunes to the upper slope southern cove (300–900 feet or 91–274 metres) all the way to the ridgeline at 1,000 feet (300 m). Palm Desert is located in the Coachella Valley, the north-western extension of the Sonoran Desert.
12. Sun City Palm Desert, California lies on the northern side of Interstate 10 from Palm Desert itself, but is unincorporated and not part of the City of Palm Desert (the original name was Sun City Palm Springs from 1991 to 1996).
13. The Riverside County Sheriff’s Department has a station located in Palm Desert which provides police services to the municipalities of Palm Desert, Rancho Mirage, and Indian Wells, as well as the surrounding unincorporated areas.
14. Palm Desert is the home of the Living Desert Zoo and Gardens, a combination zoo and botanical garden featuring an extensive collection of desert plants and animals and a state-of-the-art animal hospital.
15. Palm Desert is also the site of the main campus of College of the Desert, the local community college, which has expanded greatly in size since the campus opened in 1961 and one of the buildings was built by donations from the local Cahuilla Indian tribal nations. The state higher education system opened an extension campus duplex (the Indian Wells Education Center for both California State University, San Bernardino and the University of California Riverside.
16. The primary high school is Palm Desert High School (with 2200 students) which is part of the Desert Sands Unified School District. The main Middle School (with 1100 students) is Palm Desert Middle School, a charter school. The four elementary schools in the city are: George Washington Charter, Abraham Lincoln, Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan. The northernmost part of Palm Desert is served by the Palm Springs Unified School District, so the students can attend Rancho Mirage High School in Rancho Mirage, or Nellie Coffman Middle School and Cathedral City High School in Cathedral City, California. Some students in the eastside are zoned to La Quinta High School and Colonel Mitchell Paige Middle School.
17. Many celebrities keep homes in Palm Desert, including Rita Rudner and more recently, the current home of professional golfer Michelle Wie and one of the homes of Bill Gates. Legendary actress Anne Francis resided in a condominium until July, 2000. Film producer Jerry Weintraub called it his second home before he died. Artist Phillip K. Smith III calls Palm Desert home and his studio is in Palm Desert.
18. The city is home to the Palm Desert Scene, a musical genre that has been heavily influential internationally since the early 1990s. Many of the Palm Desert bands are credited for starting the rock/metal subgenre known as stoner rock. Bands including Queens of the Stone Age, Kyuss, and Eagles of Death Metal have become well known rock bands.
19. South of Palm Desert is the Santa Rosa and San Jacinto Mountains National Monument, and north of Palm Desert is the Coachella Valley National Wildlife Refuge.
20. The Desert Memorial Park in Cathedral City is maintained by the Palm Springs Cemetery District. Also in Cathedral City is the Forest Lawn Cemetery, maintained by Forest Lawn Memorial-Parks & Mortuaries.
