In a 2003 Condé Nast publication review, Palm Springs was ranked one of the top 10 global vacation destinations, and the smallest one in population. Palm Springs has become a tourist attraction. It became a real estate destination in the 1980s and 1990s. The Coachella Valley became popular among celebrities from Frank Sinatra to Dakota Fanning who came to enjoy vacations and winter homes in the desert resort community. Doctor McCarroll is memorialized by a stretch of I-10 through Indio named in her honor. The standard was refined and adopted worldwide. 99 in Indio, 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. June McCarroll, then a nurse with the Southern Pacific whose office fronted U.S. So too did the coming of State Highway 111 in the early 1930s, which cut a diagonal swath through the valley and connected all of its major settlements. Route 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, commerce and tourism to the rest of the country. The first boy, David Elgin, was born in 1899. Cindarella Courtney was the first non-native American child born in Indio in 1898. Even though the area had been surveyed by Edward Fitzgerald Beale in 1857, whose survey party used camels to cross the desert, primarily along the path of the historic Bradshaw Trail, it was not 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. Early maps show the area as "Conchilla," 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 the area.
There is some contention as to the origin of the name. ( April 2018) ( Learn how and when to remove this template message) Unsourced material may be challenged and removed.
Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. This section needs additional citations for verification. The Coachella Valley is sometimes called the Desert Empire to differentiate it from the broader Inland Empire.
The Coachella Valley connects with the Greater Los Angeles area to the west via the San Gorgonio Pass, a major transportation corridor, traversed by Interstate 10 and the Union Pacific Railroad. It is estimated that 3.5 million conventioneers and tourists visit the valley each year. Because it is a major winter destination, the valley's population fluctuates from almost 500,000 in April to around 200,000 in July and around 800,000 by January. In addition to Palm Springs and the area's largest city Indio, the valley is home to the resort cities of Cathedral City, Indian Wells, La Quinta, Palm Desert, and Rancho Mirage. Other events include the Palm Springs Modernism Week, Palm Springs International Film Festival, the ANA Inspiration and Desert Classic golf tournaments, and the Indian Wells Masters tennis tournament. The valley is also known for a number of annual events, including the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, the Stagecoach Country Music Festival, and the Riverside County Fair and National Date Festival, all held in Indio. The valley is noted for being the location of several wintertime resort cities, especially Palm Springs, that are popular destinations for snowbirds-people who live in cold climates and seek out warmer weather during the winter. It is bounded on the northeast by the San Bernardino and Little San Bernardino Mountains, and on the southwest by the San Jacinto and Santa Rosa Mountains. The valley extends approximately 45 mi (72 km) southeast from the San Gorgonio Pass to the northern shore of the Salton Sea and the neighboring Imperial Valley, and is approximately 15 mi (24 km) wide along most of its length. The valley may also be referred to as Greater Palm Springs due to the prominence of the city of Palm Springs. ə-/ koh- CHEL-ə, koh-ə-) is an arid rift valley in the Colorado Desert of Southern California's Riverside County. The Coachella Valley ( / k oʊ ˈ tʃ ɛ l ə, k oʊ.