Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
INGLESIDE INN
AND MELVYN'S
RESTAURANT
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Palm Springs was first populated by the Cahuilla Indians, a group of Native Americans who had
inhabited the area for more than 2,000 years. This local tribe is the namesake to the enormous Lake
Cahuilla, which went dry several hundred years ago when the Colorado River shifted.
Europeans discovered the Cahuillas in 1774 when the Spanish explorer Juan Bautista de Anza
was searching for a suitable trade route between Mexico and the seaport of Monterey, California.
Up to this time, all exploration and colonization of Alta California had been concentrated along
the seacoast. Since the Cahuilla Indians were living well inland in the desert, which the Europeans
deliberately avoided, the natives had almost no contact with outsiders.
It was not until the 1840s that Europeans came to stay. One of the early pioneers was Daniel
Sexton, who befriended the Cahuilla tribal chief, Juan Antonio. The chief also gave aide to an Army
expedition commanded by Lieutenant Edward F. Beale, shielding the expedition against Ute In-
dian assaults. The lieutenant rewarded the chief with a set of military uniform epaulets, which he
proudly wore to demonstrate their friendship.
Sexton married into the tribe and, through the local medicine man, discovered minerals nearby.
Tin mines and miners flocked to the area, making more fortunes for those selling mining claims
than those actually doing the prospecting. The Gold Rush added to the hoards of settlers, and the
influx of European people brought misery with them: A smallpox outbreak in 1863 devastated the
tribes and killed Chief Juan Antonio.
The U.S. government decided that development of the frontier took precedence over the land
claims of a couple of thousand Native Indians. Cahuilla land was divided into one-mile-square sec-
tions, giving every other one to the Indians, and encouraging the Southern Pacific Railroad to use
the others for expansion of the train routes through the desert. Indian reservation boundaries were
formally established in 1877, leaving the Cahuillas with only part of their original land.
Today, the Cahuilla occupy nine reservations in Southern California, including Agua Caliente
and Augustine, the smallest federally recognized Native American tribe—it has only six persons,
as of the 2000 census.
