USA > California > Riverside County > History of San Bernardino and Riverside counties, Volume I > Part 77
USA > California > San Bernardino County > History of San Bernardino and Riverside counties, Volume I > Part 77
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Temecula was on the old stage route to the east, via Yuma. This route started from Los Angeles and went by way of Chino, Temescal and
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Temecula, thence on to Warner's Ranch, but from Warner's Ranch on the road was bad. One canyon called Cork Screw Canyon was, as its name implies, very crooked and narrow and in places about as much as a four or six horse stage could get through, and beyond that there was a narrow ridge to cross at about an angle of forty-five degrees, with a long dreary march over a sandy water course with the deepest kind of sand. There was, however, good solid ground most of the way and stage stations at intervals of about twenty miles, with plenty of good water at these stations and good camping places. When the Colorado Desert was reached then there was a barren dry desert of about 90 miles before the Colorado River was reached at Yuma. Crossing Warner's Ranch there was almost too much water but there was fine feed.
The other stage route was by way of the San Gorgonio Pass and down the Whitewater River bed and the deep desert sands past Indio to where Mecca is now and from there east over the 90-mile Chucawalla Desert on to where Blythe now is, crossing the Colorado River at the Ferry at Ehrenberg, and when either route was taken no doubt the traveler wished he had taken the other way, but such was pioneer life in the olden time.
THE SAN GORGONIO PASS. Lying between the San Bernardino Moun- tains and San Jacinto Mountain, all of them over 10,000 feet high, the highest being nearly 12,000 feet in altitude, runs a low pass leading from the coast and San Bernardino Valley out on to the great Colorado Desert at an elevation at its greatest, at Beaumont, of about 2,800 feet above sea level is a very fertile valley. This is the pass through which the Southern Pacific Railroad found an easy grade to Yuma, Arizona, and the east. All the way from San Bernardino up the valley, is susceptible of cultivation and contains some fine farms, fertile and well watered. This continues until Banning is reached and the influence of the desert and the absence of the sea breeze is perceived when its character changes for the worse gradually increasing until Palm Springs Station is reached when the real desert begins running past Indio and the Coachella Valley and on to the Salton Sea and Imperial Valley. On the way to Indio the winds and the drifting sands wear the telegraph poles away so that they have to be reinforced and protected at the base by railroad ties. Doubtless the pass was a favorite stamping ground of the aboriginal Indian, for it was the only convenient place for a road from the coast to the desert, with plenty of game in the mountains, fish in the streams and good water everywhere.
The valley enjoys a good reputation for farming as it gets more rain- fall than the lower valley lands and was always a good cattle range. In the dry season of 1863 many head of cattle were driven from the dry valleys to be fed on the feed from the abundant rainfall. Previous to the building of the Southern Pacific Railway through the pass the country was but sparcely settled and that mainly by cattlemen. Beaumont, which was named San Gorgonio, was too far removed from the mountains to be able to avail itself of the supply of water there, was mainly a farming community and as the stopping place of the extra engines used to haul the trains from either direction to the summit, was also somewhat of a railroad town in that respect. Early in its history a few settlers went up the main canyon from Beaumont, called Oak Glen Canyon, and found some suitable naturally damp land, and raised potatoes, which were of such good quality that the settlers prospered and built homes and planted fruit trees, mainly apples, but some few peaches and cherries, which applies turned out to be of a fine quality for winter use, and the planting
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of apples still continued until Beaumont apples are known in the Southern California markets everywhere.
The old Mountain Home orchard at the foot of the mountains has long been well and favorably known for grapes, cherries and apples. Of late years an excellent road has been built from the top of the Box Spring grade from Riverside to Beaumont, on a short, straight line on the route to Hemet and San Jacinto, with an easy grade from the valley to the higher bench lands on which lies the Town of Beaumont, which when concreted will be a good road all the way.
The greatest fruit country lies in the country up the canyon route and over the dividing line to the Yuciapa Valley in San Bernardino County, which has been largely boomed by the promoters of the settle- ment on that side, and it has been noted for years for its fine cherries which come in a little later than those from the northern part of the state, but the whole of the Beaumont country is equally adapted to cherry growing. Until successfully grown at Beaumont there are few places in Southern California that could raise cherries, and it is comparatively a short fifty miles to Indio where the date palm grows to perfection. Nowhere in the known world is there such a short transition from the temperate zone to the semi-tropical as in Riverside County. The resi- dents of the hot desert country can in a few hours get away from the torrid heat of the summer months to the cool shade of the mountain pines and the sparkling mountain trout streams and enjoy the cool shade, as cannot be done anywhere else in the civilized world; or two or three hours more and you can bathe in the cool waters of the Pacific Ocean.
Beaumont has fine schools and other advantages, and enjoys a delight- ful climate in summer fanned by cool ocean breezes in the day time and by the refreshing winds from the desert at night. Beaumont has not made the progress it ought to have made from the advantages of soil, climate and productions it possesses, partly it may be surmised from lack of enterprise on the part of its owners and from having changed hands too many times, but the advantages are there whenever the inhabitants avail themselves of them.
BANNING is another pass town that but for the railroad would have still been in embryo, but the railroad started things agoing and they have kept going ever since. About eight miles from Beaumont and thirty- eight from Riverside or Colton, it is not by any means shut out by distance from anywhere. It too, like Beaumont, draws its life giving supply of water from the San Bernardino Mountains and has prospered in consequence and got fame for the fruit that thrives abundantly there. Prunes and almonds are the staples and of these she grows abundantly for export. Peaches also do exceedingly well, and in peach season Banning finds a good market for them in the warmer regions of the Imperial Valley.
In the days of railway construction, sawmills were built into the timber of the San Jacinto Mountains manufacturing lumber for local use and for railroad building, but since the railroad was built lumber sawing has been suspended. Fruit growing has made Banning com- paratively well off, and the labor question does not worry them, for there are always Indians from the nearby reservation to be hired, and they, as a rule, are very satisfactory helpers.
Banning has from the start been noted as a health resort, especially for consumptives, as the pure air from the hot desert gets cooled off before it reaches the higher lands of Banning and the pleasing climate makes living a pleasure. Doctor King, originally an invalid himself, keeps
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a sanitarium where invalids can obtain all of the benefits of climate combined with the best of treatment.
There is an excellent mountain road over the eastern slopes of San Jacinto Mountain to Hemet and San Jacinto, with the best of camping grounds among the pines, with the cool, pure mountain water and the enticing trout. Camping places are numerous and good and in the season deer attracts the hunter.
PALM SPRINGS. Away down the railroad on the way to Indio, about twenty miles, is the station called Palm Springs, but here are no springs but a small pipe line furnishing water to the station and for railroad purposes. There are a few palms growing, watered from the waste water of the pipe, set by the hand of man but thriving as these desert denizens do when they get the hot desert air with plenty of water. Some people think because the ornamental street palm, which we meet every- where in Southern California, comes from the dry desert of Colorado and around the Salton Sea in the mountain canyon, that therefore the palm which is at home there will endure a scarcity of water, but never was a greater mistake for like all other palms this palm is never found unless near a spring or running water in the canyons. Plenty of heat and plenty of water are the conditions for this popular ornamental street tree. This palm, like the redwood of the upper coast and the big trees of the Sierra Nevadas, Sequoia Sempervirems and Sequoia Gigantea and some other plants and trees of the Pacific Coast, is peculiar to California and found in natural condition nowhere else. Around the edges of the Salton Sea and in the canyons of the mountains bordering the Colorado Desert and in some cases where there are springs or damp ground they are to be found, but the place where they are to be found in the greatest num- bers and perfection is in the canyons coming down from Mount San Jacinto or adjacent mountains. The territory in which they are found is very limited and whether they extend into Lower California the writer does not know. There are two varieties, the Washingtonia Filifera and the Washingtonia Robusta, very much resembling one another, the Filifera being more stocky and not retaining so many green leaves in its top as the Robusta. There may be some other varieties but these are the best known. The Robusta grows with a very tall slim stem or trunk and the wonder is that they can stand the force of the high winds they encounter. When grown naturally and fire kept away from them they do not shed their leaves but they die off close up to the top and hang down close to the trunk to protect them from the extreme heat and there remain until a fire comes along and burns them off or the hand of man trims them off. Like the redwoods they have a very wet trunk and although a fire may destroy every leaf they will put out new leaves from the top and continue to grow. How long lived they may be has not been determined, but they will commence to bear seed when about fifteen to twenty years old. Unlike the Date palm they can only be grown from seed and make no offshoots at all. The settlement of Palm Springs lies about four miles west of Palm Springs Station on the Southern Pacific Railroad at the southern base of San Jacinto Mountain. It derives its name from a peculiar warm spring that bubbles up right out of the ground. It was a favorite resort of the Indians when white men first visited that country and still is. It is out of a direct road to Indio and the desert country beyond, but the road takes a detour in order to avoid the dry sandy, windy, desert on the direct route and also to obtain water. Of late years the roads have been very much improved, as in that dry, almost rainless, climate constant travel cuts them up and the
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absence of rain prevents settlement of the dust and sand. Occasionally in summer thunder showers lap over from Mexico, but it may be at intervals of years.
Indian reservations have prevented settlement to a great extent, but in the early days of the first settlement of Riverside it became quite noted for extremely early apricots and grapes deriving water from Whitewater River which rises in the San Bernardino Mountains and from the canyon of the San Jacinto Mountain, and quite a settlement was formed at that time and now it is noted as a resort for invalids, the pure desert air not being favorable for the growth of disease germs. Con- sumptives derive great benefit from the climate, which is very hot in the summer months, and also from the warm springs by bathing and drinking of the waters. At one time a railroad was built to connect with the Southern Pacific, but the floods of 1884 carried it pretty much away and it has never been rebuilt and nothing remains of it but an occasional streak on the grade of the old road.
Communication is now made with the Southern Pacific Road at Whitewater Station by bus, there being an excellent road all the way. Several hundred acres were under cultivation for early fruits and oranges but the Indian reservation interfered with the land and water rights and the whole has been abandoned and reverts again to nature. A little fruit is still grown.
The little town has a hotel, postoffice and the usual adjuncts of a village town, but the summer climate is too warm for comfort except for those who reside there for health reasons. However, there are plenty of shade and cool water in the canyons of San Jacinto and higher up on the road between Banning and Hemet.
In regard to the palms, inquiry of Fred Reed gives me this further authentic information. There seenis to be some confusion and a mistake made in regard to the two fan palms known generally as street palms and also as ornamental. The most common one known as Washingtonia Filifera, growing so abundantly and native to the Colorado Desert near the Salton Sea and in the canyons of San Jacinto Mountains known as Washingtonia Filifera growing more especially at Palm Springs and the mountain canyons to the west and southwest of Palm Springs is really Washingtonia Filifera Robusta, and the palm popularly known as Washingtonia Robusta should be Washingtonia Gracilis and not indigenous to Palm Springs or the borders of the Salton Sea or the mountain canyons therabouts, but a native of Lower California in a canyon facing the ocean between San Diego and Ensenada. However, the names being affixed by general consent, it will be difficult to change them, and this is given in deference to the opinions of scientific men. There are two varieties in the canyon at Palm Springs but there is so little difference in them that they are usually confounded with one another.
The above is taken from a paper published by S. B. Parish of San Bernardino in the Botanical Gazette 44, pages 408-434, December, 1907. The seeds of the palm were used by the Indians for food.
THE DESERT COUNTRY. It has been well said that Riverside County con- tains a greater variety of soil, climate and productions than any county in California, or even the United States. Everything in the temperate zone, grain, fruits, or vegetables, and also every thing that requires a semi- tropic climate, except that which requires a moist atmosphere attains per- fection. The early toilers and explorers over the eastern part of River- side County, embracing the western portion of what used to be styled
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"The Great American Desert," doubtless thought that here at least was a portion of this American continent that would always be worthless. But who would have been sanguine enough to have foreseen the advent of water and its possibilities? Not even Doctor Wozencraft, the first man with vision and a man who worked, and toiled, and spent his means and his time in a vain effort to induce Congress to take hold and help develop it. He might have been able to do something had not the Civil war intervened to divert the attention of Congress to more serious and pressing affairs. Doctor Wozencraft was (to say the least) looked on as somewhat visionary in his views as to the possibilities of the Salton Sea basin and its surrounding territory, but modern skill, experiment, and industry, have revealed greater marvels than the greatest enthusiast could have foreseen. But it is not with the waters of the mighty Colorado River that I am directly concerned, except in a casual way, but it may not be amiss to ask if anyone would have had the hardihood to predict that the Imperial Valley would have shipped 10,600 car loads of canta- loupes in the short space of about two months to all parts of the United States in the year 1921 ?
COACHELLA VALLEY. Undoubtedly one of the most remarkable regions in all the world is found in Riverside County's Coachella Valley. Ages past this vast bowl was the bed of a lake or inland sea, which gradually evaporated during the centuries, leaving the fine silt which composes the soil of that favored district today.
During the countless years the Coachella Valley was but a desert ; a place of stifling heat, parching winds, sandstorms and-thirst. With the development of the past few years, however, that part of what had been known as an arm of the Colorado Desert lost in great measure its terrors. Agriculturists bored deep for water and used it to irrigate ranches and date gardens and cotton fields, until now the valley is one of the richest sections of the county.
Located in the valley are four thriving communities, with modern schools, churches, business blocks, cement sidewalks and other features to be found in most up-to-date California cities. These are Indio, Coachello, Thermal and Mecca. The men and women who live in these communities are now reaping the benefits of their pioneering; and the towns themselves are growing rapidly, reflecting the optimism and hardy spirit of the inhabitants.
The rich soil and the salubrious climate of the Coachella Valley make it possible to grow almost any sort of crop desired, and to bring it to maturity in the least possible space of time. Early vegetables are grown in the valley to a considerable extent, and they find a ready market. Spinach and onions are among the most profitable of the crops raised, and the onions produced in the valley already have become famous. During the last several years the ranchers of the Coachella Valley have gone into cotton raising, and the results show that this district is especially suited to that crop.
As the only place in America where dates are grown commercially, the valley district is probably the best known to the country at large. There are a number of date ranches, or date "gardens" as they are called by their owners; and the profits realized from the sale of fruits often are amazing. The United States Government maintains an experi- ment station near Indio, where scientific propagation and development of date palms is studied by experts and the results made available to the world at large. More than 30 tons of dates are annually harvested from the trees growing on Coachella Valley date ranches, this evidencing that
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the industry is already growing out of its infancy. Near Coachella there has been erected a scientifically constructed date packing house, with special facilities for caring for the crop. Coachella Valley dates already have come to be recognized as superior in many ways to the imported fruit.
Coachella Valley is the wonder land of California and the United States. When I say Coachella Valley I include all of the Imperial Valley embraced in the Salton Sea basin. Although Coachella is depend- ing on water it is fortunate that it does not come from the Colorado River but from artesian wells within its own borders and from water pumped from wells where there is no artesian flow.
At Thermal is where artesian water was discovered and the Southern Pacific Railway which at first hauled its water for local use put down a well and found artesian water. It was, however, a good many years before anyone had the hardihood and the courage to try for water and raise something for market. The four settlements of Indio, Coachella, Thermal and Mecca all lie within a few miles of each other, but Coachella was the first to try the artesian water and got it. The soil of all this part of the valley is somewhat different from the southeastern part of the valley that was more directly under the influence of the deposits of silt from the Colorado River, although it is but fourteen miles from Salton, the deepest part of the old Gulf of California basin and the elevation about two hundred feet below sea level, from Indio 20 feet below, to Mecca, a distance of fourteen miles, the fall being about one hundred and eighty feet. The soil in its original state was not at all invit- ing in places, having a light covering of salt or alkali with an occasional mesquite tree growing. The soil was, however, more sandy than the Imperial Valley being composed mainly of drift sand carried from the valley further up and from the San Bernardino Mountains in extremely rainy seasons by the Whitewater River. The waters of the Whitewater rising in the San Bernardino Mountains and the drainage from San Jacinto Mountains are undoubtedly the source of the artesian and surface water. The depth at which artesian water may be found varies, but seldom under 500 feet and up to 1,400 feet at Thermal. Near Mecca, at Oasis, down nearer the Salton Sea, the water is warm, about 100 degrees, and all of the artesian and surface water is very pure. At Indio surface water is found about 100 feet, varying from that up to 300 feet where it is pumped. The railway hauls whole train loads of this pure water to the Imperial Valley for domestic use. When the high level canal is built from the California side of the National line in place of from Mexican territory the Imperial Valley proposes to take this pure artesian water in exchange for river water to be used for domestic purposes. In this way Coachella and surrounding towns will get this rich silt laden water for irrigation.
Coachella was originally named Conchella or place of shells, but by a printer's mistake it was named Coachella and the mistake was permitted to stand.
Coachella was noted from the first for early vegetables, the dry, warm atmosphere and southern exposure favoring early maturity and green peas and early beans were first tried and sent to San Francisco early markets where they brought remunerative prices. Since then onions have been a staple crop and have been very remunerative, bringing as high as $500 per acre net in the early market before they were ripe elsewhere. Cotton, too, was very remunerative during the latter days of the war when prices were high. The crop was also much larger than in the South and the absence of the boll weevil being a great benefit. In 1920, however, disaster came to the cotton growers owing to extremely
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low prices and dull markets, but those who could hold on to the crop until 1921 sold at remunerative prices.
Melons are one of the present staples of Coachella and alfalfa and corn crops are all first class, but what Coachella looks to ultimately is dates for the date is as much at home as it is in Arabia or in the oasis in Africa, and Coachella claims on good authority and on the testimony of people from the date country of Africa and Asia and dealers in dates, that the Coachella dates are even superior and have a much higher per- centage of sugar. Medicinally the date is credited with great value and sugar from the date is free from the objections made against the refined sugar of commerce. Coachella dates are claimed to have from 70 per cent to 80 per cent of sugar while foreign dates have only 24 per cent. This is claimed to be a great advantage, for Coachella dates can be used as a confection for children in place of candy, and the date ranks very high in food value. The Fard date has 35 per cent of sugar while the California date of the same variety has 65 per cent. The date it is claimed has a food value of 60 per cent, double the food value of the egg, five times that of milk or potatoes and are of the same value weight for weight as beef or mutton and the assimilative value of the date is claimed to be greater than any other product of the soil. The seed has also a great food value, although we are not told that the seeds are used by the human family. We know, however, that the Indians placed a high value on the seeds of the Palm Springs palm.
The most profitable date "gardens" are from plants brought from Arabia and Africa from the very best varieties grown there which never appear in the American market. These imported plants are very costly, hence it costs a big sum of money to buy roots, say two or three thousand dollars per acre, but they commence to bear in two or three years and some bearing palms bear as high as four hundred pounds of dates per tree, some have even gone as high as five hundred pounds. These valuable varieties sell readily for 50 cents per pound, or even higher, and unlike deciduous fruits they are nearly dry enough to keep when ripe and so there is but little loss in curing. About 100 trees per acre can be grown. One drawback to the date is the comparatively slow method of propagation for the date does not come true to seed and must be propagated by offshoots from the base of the tree and the average limit to offshoots is about ten per tree, for when they come into full bearing they cease having offshoots, and for this reason the spread of the industry is very slow. Another thing; the date palm is unisexual and a certain proportion of trees have to be retained to polenate the fruit bearing trees, which is done by hand. It is said the date is the richest food grown and in Arabia the date is the principal food of the people in date growing sections.
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