The Palm Springs Desert Museum dedicated its brand new, modern, 10,000 square foot facility designed by E. Stewart Williams on Oct. 24, 1958.
The building would not only have room to highlight the exhibits on natural history that primarily focused on the indigenous people living in the Coachella Valley, but also on the plants and animals found in the Colorado Desert. The new museum would also have the room to display desert landscape and other artistic expressions by local desert artists.
The Desert Museum, as it was originally called before being renamed to the Palm Springs Art Museum in 2005, had initially been housed in a small office in La Plaza beginning in 1938.
During World War II, the museum was moved to a section of the city’s library and then after the war, the museum found a larger space in a part of what had been Torney General Hospital, a wartime hospital. A desert wildlife habitat, botanical garden and an open air natural history museum were added to that museum space in 1952.
Also in 1952, Cornelia White, Isabel White Chase and Earl Coffman donated their collections of desert landscape paintings created by Carl Eytel. In just five short years, members of the community raised the funds to design and build a permanent home for the Palm Springs Desert Museum. The new facility was located in the heart of downtown Palm Springs at 139 Tahquitz McCallum Way. In 1962, the new building was expanded for an auditorium and new galleries were built to house contemporary art exhibitions. At that time the name of the Desert Museum was changed to the Palm Springs Desert Museum.
There is a multitude of ways to Explore Palm Springs, which turned 75 in 2013. One of the more intriguing methods is by exploring Palm Springs history. The Palm Springs Historical Society will share a story whose time and place corresponds with today.
The Palm Springs Historical Society is located at 221 S. Palm Canyon Drive.
Visit www.pshistoricalsociety.org for more information.