Palm Springs, CA (IMG) (Images of America)
Title: Palm Springs history celebratedAuthor: Terria SmithPublisher: The Desert SunDate: 2/27/09A new book commemorating a history of Palm Springs in photographs hit the shelves this month. "Images of America Palm Springs" includes 200 historical photographs dating back to 1876.The book was compiled by Moya Henderson, a Palm Springs resident of 70 years, along with the Palm Springs Historical Society. It's published by Arcadia Publishing.The Palm Springs Sun recently talked with Henderson and Jeri Vogelsberg, director and curator at the Palm Springs Historical Society, about the task of putting the book together.QUESTION: How did the historical society get all of the pictures for the book?Henderson: Since we started the historical society, people have donated (photos). And we're always happy to get more, especially when we can figure (out) what they're about.When people pass away we get them. We have to go through them and try to identify who's in them.Was the task of putting the book together difficult?Vogelsberg: It took about six months to complete the book.Henderson: When it came to putting the book together, the pictures weren't in any logical order from the calendars I had done.It was just getting them in the right sequence and the stories behind them.The publisher had a page limit, a word limit per page. It made it hard to work within the restrictions.It didn't seem like much when we started out, but we've never done this sort of thing before.How was Palm Springs in the early days different from the city today?Henderson: You could ride your horse or bicycles down Palm Canyon Drive. ... We had horses, rodeos. At one time there were 17 stables in Palm Springs.Title: Book pictures valley historyAuthor: Jamie Lee PricerPublisher: The Desert SunDate: 2/23/2009Palm Springs, from its first days as an Indian settlement to its development as a health resort, a Hollywood getaway and a major tourism site, gets a nostalgic review in a new 128-page paperback book released this month."Images of America: Palm Springs," written by 70-year Palm Springs resident Moya Henderson and the city's historical society, is light on text, but heavy on photos and captions.The focus is on the people and historical structures of the community. The story picks up when Judge John McCallum's family members become the area's first permanent non-white settlers in 1884. About 240 black and white photos trace the city's development from then to the early 1970s, when Princess Grace of Monaco and her family rode the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway.Six chapters -- Original Peoples, Pioneers, Transportation, Early Community, Beginning of Tourism and Entertainment -- take the reader through the city's "western town" events, the years when celebrity spotting was easy and the rise of tourism.All the photographs come from the archives of the Palm Springs Historical Society."Since we started the historical society, people have donated them," Henderson says. "And, we are always happy to get more, especially when we can figure out what they are about."If this piques your interest, hundreds of photos and artifacts are on display at the McCallum Adobe, which houses the collection of the Palm Springs Historical Society.