Coachella Valley

The Coachella Valley is an irrigated agricultural and recreational desert valley in southern California east of Los Angeles. The valley extends for approximately 45 miles (72 km) in Riverside County southeast from the San Bernardino Mountains to the Salton Sea. It is approximately 15 miles (24 km) wide along most of its length, bounded on the west by the San Jacinto Mountains and the Santa Rosa Mountains and on the north and east by the Little San Bernardino Mountains. The San Andreas Fault crosses the valley from the Chocolate Mountains in the southeast corner and along the centerline of the Little San Bernardinos. The fault is easily visible along its northern length as a strip of greenery against an otherwise bare mountain. The Chocolate Mountains are home to a United States Navy live gunnery range and are mostly off-limits to the public.

History

There is some contention as to the origin of the name. Early maps show the area as "Conchella," the Spanish word for "seashell." Since the area was once a part of a vast inland sea, tiny fossilized mollusk shells can be found in just about every remote area. The general consensus is that the name was made up, much to the consternation of the area's early settlers. Even though the area had been surveyed by Edward Fitzgerald Beale in 1857, whose survey party actually used camels to cross the desert, primarily along the path of the historic Bradshaw Trail, it wasn't until the coming of the Southern Pacific Railroad and the discovery of abundant artesian wells later in the 19th Century that the area began to expand. Cindarella Courtney was the first non-Indian child born in Indio in 1898. The first boy, David Elgin, was born in 1899.

Related Topics:
Edward Fitzgerald Beale - 1857 - Camels - Bradshaw Trail - Southern Pacific Railroad - Artesian - 1898 - 1899

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The coming in 1926 of U.S. Highway 99 northward through Coachella and Indio and westward toward Los Angeles more or less along the present route of Interstate 10 helped further open both agriculture and tourism to the rest of the country. So too did the coming of State Highway 111 in the early 1930's, which cut a diagonal swath through the valley and connected all of its major settlements. Dr. June McCarroll, then a nurse with the Southern Pacific whose office fronted US 99 in Coachella, is credited with being the first person to delineate a divided highway by painting a stripe down the middle of the roadbed in response to frequent head-on collisions. The standard was refined and adopted worldwide. Doctor McCarroll is memorialized by a stretch of I-10 through Indio named in her honor.

Related Topics:
1926 - U.S. Highway 99 - Los Angeles - Interstate 10 - State Highway 111 - June McCarroll

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