When my health dictated I resign from Technicolor and retire, I had many options. I had spent all of my life up to that point around Hollywood and Burbank because I worked there, and before that I grew up near there. But now I could go anywhere, literally, and at 41, depending on how I responded to treatment, wherever I went could end up being home for a very long time. Without being overly moribund, I knew that wherever I chose would likely be where I would die someday – maybe sooner, maybe later. So it was a big decision and a lot of thought went into it. An early frontrunner in the “where in the world is Matt gonna move?” sweepstakes was Manhattan Beach in the South Bay region of Los Angeles, but I decided to head east to the desert.
When I told my mom, she confirmed for me one of my deepest held beliefs, and that is mothers know exactly who you are and always want the best for you, no matter what. I said, “mom, I’ve decided to move to Palm Springs.” And she said, “oh I am so glad cuz there’s lots of gays there and you’ll have lots of friends and be happy.”
Okay, she was right. But how did all this come about? Palm Springs was a popular destination long before the Stonewall Riots sparked the gay liberation movement in 1969. Something must have drawn people here before that.
Around two thousand years ago, while a man named Jesus was causing quite a stink in Jerusalem, the Cahuilla people lived here in this area. The Cahuilla name for Palm Springs was Se-Khi (“boiling water”). The first written record of a non-native Cahuilla in the Palm Springs area comes from a diary kept by Brevet Capt. José Romero, sent by the newly formed Mexican government after they had gained independence from Spain to map out an overland route from the northern Mexican region (now state) of Sonora to the Mexican territory of Alta California (what is now the US state of California).
During Romero’s 1823-24 expedition, his diary, kept by Commander Lt. José Maria Estudillo, noted there would be no water or pasture for the horses until agua caliente (Spanish for “hot water”) was reached, which implies that they had knowledge of the existence of the Cahuilla settlement called “boiling water,” possibly because of Spaniards and Franciscan missionaries exploring the region years earlier.
In 1876, the area was contained within the US state of California; it had been ceded to the United States government as part of the 1848 Treaty of Hidalgo that ended the Mexican-American War. That year, the United States established the Agua Caliente Reservation over 31,128 acres in a checkerboard format of alternating sections of 640 acres for the Cahuilla people. That arrangement exists to this day; much of the land underneath the city of Palm Springs is leased from the Agua Caliente (as the Cahuilla tribe is now called), who secured the right for its tribal members to lease the land to homeowners, developers, and the like for 99 years at a time in 1959 – making the Agua Caliente one of the wealthiest native tribes in the United States.
8 years later, in 1884, John McCallum relocated his family here seeing its unsurpassed natural beauty and because the dry, hot climate was beneficial to the health of those infected with tuberculosis; many followed in his footsteps and for just that reason (presaging the great desert migration of those suffering from HIV/AIDS to Palm Springs in the 1990s I wrote about here), but it is McCallum who is considered to be the first white settler in Palm Springs. By the 1930s, Palm Springs became the #1 getaway for Hollywood stars, but why? They didn’t have tuberculosis, did they?
No. It was two things. First, there was what was called “the 2-hour rule” written into the employment agreements of actors and actresses under contract to the big studios which required them to live and vacation within 2 hours of Hollywood in Los Angeles. This rule ensured they were always close to whatever set they were working on and production would not be hampered by issues surrounding travel over great distances that might delay a shoot.
Palm Springs is 2 hours by car east of Los Angeles.
But it is the second, related reason which I think infused into the DNA of Palm Springs its characteristic culture of allowing people to be themselves. In the 1930s, a star’s life and livelihood could easily be destroyed by gossip or scandal. and every star lived under a constant threat of exposure due to surveillance. An extramarital affair or revelation that a star was gay spelled the end of a career if found out by the puritanical American public who idolized the people they saw on the silver screen. Gossip columnists like Louella Parsons and Hedda Hopper wielded immense power as their millions of readers hung on every word, devouring the salacious with the glamorous and creating an atmosphere of paranoia amongst the onscreen talent in Hollywood. Parsons, Hopper, and numerous publications had spies (the paparazzi of the day) feverishly trailing every Hollywood star looking for the next juicy scandal. And this sold newspapers.
But word soon spread amongst Hollywood’s A-Listers that there was a nearby desert oasis, a sanctuary where one could be relatively safe from the prying eyes of gossip columnists and their readers. Remember, it’s the 1930s. The country if not the world was in the economic throes of the Great Depression. Being a gossip columnist’s spy didn’t pay much, but they would be reimbursed for their travel expenses – and there was money to be made there. They were reimbursed for their expenses incurred while following the stars around and spying on them, but only within a radius of 100 miles from Hollywood in Los Angeles.
Palm Springs is 109 miles from Los Angeles.
This little quirk of geography gained Palm Springs the reputation it still enjoys today as a place where it is okay to be yourself and do your thing, whatever that means. It has been my home for 18 years, and mom… I have lots of friends and I am happy.