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The Coachella Valley ( ) is an arid rift valley in the Colorado Desert of Southern California in Riverside County. The valley has been referred to as Greater Palm Springs and occasionally the Palm Springs Area due to the historic prominence of the city of Palm Springs. The valley extends approximately southeast from the San Gorgonio Pass to the northern shore of the Salton Sea and the neighboring Imperial Valley, and is approximately wide along most of its length. 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 Coachella Valley is notable as the location of several wintertime resort cities that have become popular destinations for full time retirees and seasonal residents known as snowbirds. 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. Other events include the Modernism Week, Palm Springs International Film Festival, the ANA Inspiration and Desert Classic golf tournaments, and the Indian Wells Open tennis tournament.
The Coachella Valley is home to the cities of Cathedral City, Coachella, Desert Hot Springs, Indian Wells, Indio, La Quinta, Palm Desert, Palm Springs, and Rancho Mirage.
Summers in the valley are extremely hot and valley winters are mild. As such, the valley's population tends to fluctuate; from nearly 500,000 in April, to around 300,000 in July and August, to around 600,000 by January. It was stated by the Riverside County HR Department that "Palm Springs and the Desert Communities" were being visited by 3.5 million conventioneers and tourists annually.
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 by the Union Pacific Railroad. The valley is considered part of the Low Desert and is included within the Desert Empire to differentiate it from the broader Inland Empire of Southern California.
The coming in 1926 of U.S. 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 agriculture, commerce and tourism to the rest of the country. 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.Nordland, Ole J. (May 1968) "Coachella Valley's Golden Years" Coachella Valley County Water District Dr. June McCarroll, then a nurse with the Southern Pacific whose office fronted U.S. 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. The standard was refined and adopted worldwide. Doctor McCarroll is memorialized by a stretch of I-10 through Indio named in her honor.
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. It became a real estate destination in the 1980s and 1990s and has also become a tourist destination.
The area is surrounded on the southwest by the Santa Rosa Mountains, by the San Jacinto Mountains to the west, the Little San Bernardino Mountains to the east and San Gorgonio Mountain to the north. These mountains peak at around and tend to average between . Elevations on the valley floor range from above sea level at the north end of the Valley to below sea level around Mecca. Coachella Valley | Coachella Valley Climate | Agriculture | Soils | Water
The San Andreas Fault traverses the valley's east side. Because of this fault, the valley has many hot springs. The Santa Rosa Mountains to the west are part of the Elsinore Fault Zone. The results of a prehistoric sturzstrom can be seen in Martinez Canyon. The Painted Canyons of Mecca feature smaller faults as well as Precambrian, Tertiary and Quaternary rock formations, unconformities, badlands and desert landforms. Fault lines cause hot water springs or geysers to rise from the ground. These natural water sources made habitation and development possible in the otherwise inhospitable desert environment of the Coachella Valley. Major have affected the Coachella Valley. For instance, the 1992 Landers earthquake caused some damage in the valley. An earthquake of local origin which caused considerable damage was the 1986 North Palm Springs earthquake, which registered at a magnitude of 6.0, injuring 29 people and destroying 51 homes.
The valley is the northwestern extension of the Sonoran Desert to the southeast, and as such, is extremely arid. Most precipitation falls during the winter months from passing mid-latitude frontal systems from the north and west, nearly all of it as rain, but with snow atop the surrounding mountains. Rain also falls during the summer months as surges of moisture from both the Gulf of Mexico and the Gulf of California are drawn into the area by the desert monsoon. Occasionally, the remnants of a Pacific tropical cyclone can also affect the valley. In 1976, Tropical Storm Kathleen brought torrential rain and catastrophic flooding to the Coachella Valley as it swept in from the Pacific, traversing the region from south to north. A haboob powerful enough to have a significant impact on the Coachella Valley can happen every two years.
See also:
The area has a large percentage of Mexican American political figures, plus the state assembly representative Bonnie Garcia of La Quinta is of Puerto Rican parentage.
The Coachella Valley was settled by a diverse array of races and ethnicities. Once viewed as predominantly Caucasian, the Coachella Valley has features of a diverse history. A 2004 Claritas study found that 373,100 people resided in the region, with an overall racial makeup of 44.7% White, 49.9% Hispanic, 1.8% Black/African American, 2.1% Asian/Pacific Islander, 0.4% American Indian and Eskimo, 0.1% other, and 1.1% two or more races. A 2009 Market Street assessment placed the racial and ethnic makeup as 48% White, 48% Hispanic, 2% Black, and 2% other.
Starting in the 1890s, there was a large Irish people and Scotland presence in the region, after Palm Springs was an established agricultural colony called "Palm Valley" cofounded by Welwood Murray, a Scottish immigrant and John Guthrie McCallum, an American from the U.S. East Coast. The two men widely advertised the colony to settlers with an interest in a warm climate and the ideal winter residence.Facts and Legends: The Village of Palm Springs, Sally Presley, (1986, fourth printing 2002)
Most of the valley's Hispanics are Mexican American from a multi-generational community (see Chicano), but immigrants (especially in Indio and Cathedral City), , Puerto Ricans, and South Americans are also numerous (esp. in Rancho Mirage and Palm Desert). Since the late 1980s, the large wave of immigration from neighboring Mexico has culturally impacted the Coachella Valley in many more ways than the rest of California or the country, but the national trend slowed down due to the late 2000s recession.
Most Hispanic immigrants came to obtain work in the area's year-round agriculture, but today many find employment in construction and home remodeling, the resort hospitality industry, landscaping firms, and retail.
are concentrated in Palm Springs' northern and eastern ends, as well as in small sections of Indio and Desert Hot Springs, but local African Americans live everywhere in middle-class and wealthy areas and comprise less than 5 percent of the local population. The area is home to 10,000 (mostly from Sri Lanka), descendants of agricultural workers in the 1930s and 1940s. Additionally, Palm Desert is the home of 1,000 , a Pacific Islander people from French Polynesia.
Other ethnic groups in the area like Asian Americans (i.e. Han Chinese, Japanese people and Filipinos), followed by a small wave of Armenians and Arab people (esp. Lebanese people and Syrian people) from the Middle East were involved in the area's agriculture in the early 1900s. In recent years, the area (especially Palm Desert and Palm Springs) became popular for Persian people, Israeli people, Indian people, Yugoslav (Former) and Koreans home buyers, with most purchasing increasingly high-valued properties for investment purposes.
| Cathedral City | 51,493 |
| Coachella | 41,941 |
| Desert Hot Springs | 32,512 |
| Indian Wells | 4,757 |
| Indio | 89,137 |
| La Quinta | 37,558 |
| Palm Desert | 51,163 |
| Palm Springs | 44,575 |
| Rancho Mirage | 16,999 |
| Cities Total | 370,135 |
The incorporated cities of the Coachella Valley had a population of approximately 370,000 at the 2020 Census. State projections estimate that the valley's population will pass 1 million by 2066.[5] Demographers believe the total population already surpassed the 500,000 mark, plus 100,000 temporary seasonal residents known as "snowbirds" arriving to stay during the winter months (from the end of October to the end of April).
The city of Palm Springs sits at the northwest end of the valley. Unincorporated areas and towns include Cabazon in the San Gorgonio Pass, and Bermuda Dunes and Thousand Palms in the east end of the valley. Others include Carver Tract, a county island between the cities of Indio and Coachella, Indio Hills, Sky Valley, North Palm Springs and Garnet along the northern rim along with Thermal, Vista Santa Rosa, Oasis and Mecca to the southeast. The native Cahuilla tribe represented in the Cabazon Band of Mission Indians, Twentynine Palms Band of Mission Indians, Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians and the Torres-Martinez Band of Cahuilla Indians, the Mission Creek Band in unincorporated Painted Hills, and the Santa Rosa Indian Reservation south of Palm Desert, each have reservations in the area.
The valley is the primary date-growing region in the United States, responsible for nearly 95 percent of the nation's crop and is celebrated each year in Indio during the Riverside county fair and National Date Festival. The earliest attempt at growing dates came about in 1890 when the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) imported date palm shoots from Iraq and Egypt. Sixty-eight shoots were distributed across the Southwest U.S. in Las Cruces, New Mexico, Yuma, Arizona, Phoenix, Arizona, and several California cites: Indio, Pomona near Los Angeles, Tulare and National City near San Diego. The imports were almost all male seedlings and produced poor fruit. The Coachella Valley showed promise, so USDA horticulturist Bernard Johnson planted a number of shoots that he brought back from Algeria in September 1903. On his own initiative, Johnson imported more shoots from Algeria in 1908 and again in 1912. The area's entire date industry can be traced back to those original USDA experiments near present-day Mecca. Date palms were grown from present-day Cathedral City to the Salton Sea, but most date groves were overtaken by development by the 1990s. Today nearly all of the date groves are in the "East Valley" area south of Indio, near Coachella and east of La Quinta.
Other agricultural products cultivated in the Coachella Valley include fruits and vegetables, especially table grapes, citrus fruits such as lemons, limes, oranges and grapefruit; onions and leeks; and peppers. The valley floor served to grow bounties of alfalfa, artichokes, avocados, beans, beets, cabbage, carrots, corn, cotton, cucumbers, dandelions (salad greens), eggplant, figs, grains (i.e. barley, oats, rye and wheat; plus rice fields kept wet or moist in the Salton Sea area), hops, kohlrabi, lettuce, mangoes, nectarines and peaches, persimmons, plums and prunes, pomegranate, potatoes, radishes, spinach, strawberries, sugar cane, tomatoes, a variety of herbs and spices, and other vegetable crops. The Coachella grapefruit originated in the region. The city of Coachella is the primary shipping point for agricultural goods. Domesticated grasses, flowers and trees are widely grown for warm-weather or desert climates, and sold for use in golf courses and landscape.
Only 10 percent of the Coachella Valley residents were born/raised in the area, according to the 2000 census, a much lower percentage than found in most parts of the U.S. Agriculture is a founding block of the majority of the residents whose parents and grandparents came to the area as farmers and laborers transformed the eastern parts of the valley from a hot sandy desert into a fertile place with a year-round growing season. The Coachella Valley's agricultural development is due to irrigation: water was drawn from an underground aquifer created when the valley was under a fresh water lake in the last ice age (over 10,000 years ago); and from the Coachella Canal, a concrete-lined aqueduct built between 1938 and 1948 as a branch of the All-American Canal, which brings water from the Colorado River to the Valley. The Colorado River Aqueduct, which provides drinking water to Los Angeles and San Diego, crosses the northeast end of the Valley along the base of the Little San Bernardino Mountains (the Joshua Tree National Park). Recent growth of fish farming or aquaculture in Mecca near the Salton Sea brings new promise to the local economy, especially to efforts to restore the ailing ecology of the large saltwater lake.
The Coachella Valley was once a safe haven for hay fever allergy sufferers before the surge of golf courses and year-round lawns, and people with bronchitis, emphysema and asthma chose to relocate for health reasons in the early half of the 20th century.
In the early 20th century, the town of Palm Springs was ideal for an agricultural economy. Today, many of the fields and groves of the desert cities were replaced by homes and golf courses. Agriculture thrived in the eastern or lower part of the Coachella Valley in Indio, Coachella, Thermal, Mecca, and Oasis thanks in part to a large underground aquifer to sustain a year-round green environment.
Roughly 125 golf courses blanket the area, making it one of the world's premier golf destinations and the most popular golf vacation destination in California. The Merrill Lynch Skins Game was held in La Quinta each Thanksgiving and drew some of the biggest names in golf. The PGA has a major presence in La Quinta as well with the PGA WEST golf and residential complex. One of the host courses of the aforementioned Bob Hope Chrysler Classic, a PGA WEST fairway represents the area in Soarin' Over California, an IMAX-based attraction at Disney California Adventure Park theme park.
The area is also dotted with casinos owned by the local Indian tribes. As of 2024, there are six standalone casinos in the Coachella Valley. The valley is home to resort hotels built around spas with natural mineral water wells, specifically in Desert Hot Springs. The Palm Springs Aerial Tramway takes visitors from the valley floor to the San Jacinto Peak mountain station above sea level.
Palm Springs is home to one of the country's largest collections of mid-century architecture. Thousands of homes, apartments, hotels, businesses and other buildings were designed in this fashion across the city. International mid-century enthusiasts come to Palm Springs to admire the design.
Palm Springs has the annual Palm Springs International Film Festival every January and the Palm Springs International Short Film Festival (or ShortFest) held in June, at the Palm Springs Cultural Center.
The Indian Wells Tennis Garden, opened in 2000, hosts the BNP Paribas Open tennis tournament annually in March.
Each February, Indio hosts the Riverside County Fair and National Date Festival. Indio is also the site of the annual Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, Official Coachella Music and Arts Festival a multi-genre music concert venue in the Empire Polo Ground, recognized as one of the nation's premiere music festivals for its high-profile acts and scenic beauty.
Visitors see desert nature at the nearby Joshua Tree National Park and the Sand to Snow National Monument to the north, the Santa Rosa Mountains to the south and Mt. San Jacinto Aerial Tram to the west. The Living Desert Zoo and Gardens is located in Palm Desert and has a collection of animals mostly from North America and Africa and hosts the annual Wild Lights Christmas light display.
The Coachella Valley History Museum in Indio is devoted to the preservation and interpretation of the Coachella Valley's historical artifacts.
Other activities include:
There are 12 public high schools:
For athletics, the schools compete in the Desert Valley League, Desert Empire League or the De Anza league, all part of the Southern Section of the California Interscholastic Federation.
Private education is provided by such as:
Higher education is served by the College of the Desert (COD), a community college with its main campus in Palm Desert. COD constructed several satellite campuses including an annex on Oasis Street in Indio, an East Valley campus in Thermal and a West Valley annex in Palm Springs. COD has experienced sudden growth in the campus from the 1970s to the late 2000s.
The University of California Riverside (Coachella Valley) and California State University San Bernardino (Palm Desert) campus annexes are located in the Indian Wells (Higher) Education Center in Palm Desert.
There is the Santa Barbara Business College and the San Bernardino Skidron Business School/College in Palm Desert. Another college is Brandman University, operated by Chapman University in Palm Desert.
Cable subscribers under Charter Spectrum cable can receive some Los Angeles area television channels as part of basic cable service. Satellite television and satellite radio are available as well. The eastern Coachella Valley can receive Mexican television from Mexicali, away.
The Gannett Company-owned The Desert Sun is the local daily newspaper; the Los Angeles Times and the Press-Enterprise is also sold there (Gannett also operates the Desert Post Weekly). The Desert Valley Star Weekly is an independent community weekly that covers the Coachella Valley, and the Desert Entertainer is a calendar-type entertainment weekly produced by Hi-Desert Publishing. The area's city magazine, Palm Springs Life caters to the valley's rich and famous elites, while The Sun Runner Magazine covers the California desert region, including the Coachella Valley. Palm Springs Art Patron Magazine covers the Art community of the Desert. A number of periodicals cover the area's LGBT community, including In Magazine.
An alternative news and entertainment publication, the Coachella Valley Independent, was founded online in late 2012. It is currently in print as a monthly publication. Another independent publication is Coachella Valley Weekly, which is printed weekly and was also founded in 2012. The Coachella Valley also has a art blog for the younger community.
Alpha Media Palm Springs is the largest radio group in the Coachella Valley with 8 local radio stations.
WestMark Media LLC owns KPSF, 1200 AM and 100.9 FM. The only oldies station called Studio 100.9.
Electricity
Natural gas
Cable Television
Public transportation in the valley is provided by the SunLine Transit Agency based in Thousand Palms, which was among the country's first transit agencies to totally convert to alternate fuel vehicles, including full-sized buses powered by .
The Palm Springs Airport provides service to many North American destinations. Amtrak trains serve North Palm Springs and its coaches provide a connection to Metrolink Los Angeles regional commuter rail at Moreno Valley station. Greyhound Lines buses link the Valley with the Los Angeles metropolitan area, Calexico on the Mexican border, and points east.
Farrell, after whom a street in Palm Springs is named, would later be elected mayor. Farrell Drive is built on the path of the Palmdale Railroad, a narrow-gauge horse-drawn railroad right-of-way originally built to serve the proposed town of Palmdale. The town was never built and the railroad was abandoned after a few years of operation. The ties were used to build one of the area's earliest residences and the Cornelia White House still stands today in downtown Palm Springs.
Medal of Honor recipient Captain William McGonagle was a graduate of Coachella High School and made the valley his home after his retirement. Mitchell Paige was another Medal of Honor veteran who lived in Palm Desert and has a middle school in La Quinta named after him. Jacqueline Cochran, founder and director of the Women Airforce Service Pilots lived her last years in Indio. In 2005, Microsoft CEO Bill Gates reportedly bought and owns a home in The Vintage Club Country Club in Indian Wells.
Elvis Presley honeymooned in Palm Springs in 1967 and was a frequent visitor as well since he owned a home here from 1970 until his death in 1977. Frank Sinatra, Bob Hope and Dinah Shore were residents of the valley and were instrumental in the creation of three major golf tournaments, the Frank Sinatra Celebrity Golf Tournament, Bob Hope Chrysler Classic (now hosted by comedian and golf aficionado George Lopez) and the LPGA Tour's Nabisco Championship. All three have streets named in their honor as does President Gerald Ford, a longtime Rancho Mirage resident and benefactor of the substance abuse center that bears his wife's name, the Betty Ford Center on the campus of the Eisenhower Medical Center, named for general, U.S. president and part-time resident Dwight Eisenhower. The medical center expanded in size by the new Walter Annenberg building named for the valley resident, billionaire, friend of celebrities and philanthropist. Sinatra and his friends, including Dean Martin, Perry Como, Tony Bennett, Sammy Davis Jr., Rosemary Clooney and Connie Francis were frequent visitors in the close-knit celebrity community of the Coachella Valley in the 1950s and 1960s.
The main road into Palm Springs International Airport, named simply "Airport Road", was renamed Kirk Douglas on October 17, 2004. Douglas, a major area benefactor, lived in the valley for more than fifty years and is credited with spearheading the drive to modernize the area over those five decades. His son, actor Michael Douglas, is said to own a residence in Palm Springs with his wife, actress Catherine Zeta-Jones.
Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz were instrumental in forming the exclusive Thunderbird Heights tract in Rancho Mirage, once the home of President Gerald Ford and his wife Betty. According to Palm Springs Life magazine, that same tract inspired the name in late 1954 for the Ford Thunderbird. The magazine incorrectly cites that a favorite vacation spot for General Motors executives, Palm Desert's Eldorado Country Club, inspired the name for Cadillac's top model the year before — though Cadillac had chosen the name five years before the club's founding in an internal competition. Local automotive history indicates that designer Raymond Loewy penned the Studebaker Avanti in his Palm Springs home. Especially since the 1950s, Palm Springs and nearby golf clubs are hailed as the "playground of celebrities". However it is said that celebrities travel or reside in the Palm Springs area in lesser numbers as compared to yesteryear, but the area's "star power" made a comeback in the 2000s.
Ball and Arnaz helped finance construction of the Indian Wells Country Club. Founded in 1956 with their winter residence on DesiLu Court, Indian Wells became a major factor in "down valley" growth in the 1970s and 1980s. A mostly gated community, Indian Wells has one of the highest per capita income of any small town in the United States, while nearby Coachella, a short distance southeast on State Route 111 is the third poorest city of the 10,000–50,000 population range in the nation, though that is rapidly changing as the area develops. A memorial to Eisenhower can be found on the front lawn of Indian Wells City Hall, also features the local veterans memorial plaque to represent the community's 800 veterans, a high number of war veterans per ratio of its predominantly senior citizen population. Coachella has the Vietnam War veterans' memorial to represent their community's high representation of armed forces volunteers, a large percentage had Spanish surnames since the city's population are over 90 percent Latino.
Many other celebrities, past and present, have called the area home such as actor Paul Burke. Among those who grew up in the area:
U.S. President John F. Kennedy was a frequent guest of Frank Sinatra, and a plaque in one of the pews of Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Palm Desert marks the spot where Kennedy would usually sit during Mass.
That same area in Palm Desert once served as a training ground for General George Patton's Third Army troops and tank battalions; today, the site is home to the El Paseo shopping district. Patton also trained in a huge plot of desert stretching from Chiriaco Summit just off the eastern end of the valley northward almost to Amboy along U.S. Route 66 in the Mojave Desert. Tank tracks from those maneuvers are still visible today in the open desert and a museum dedicated to Patton is located in Chiriaco Summit. Patton was also a frequent guest at the Whittier Ranch House in Indio, a grand adobe structure which had faced the possibility of demolition as the ranch lands surrounding it were being developed. A grass roots organization had petitioned the city to preserve the structure for use as a VFW post; it has instead been restored and retained as the clubhouse for the new Whittier Ranch housing development. It is also now a California state historic site.
Sonny Bono ran a restaurant in downtown Palm Springs. Frustrated by the lack of cooperation he faced from the city council over a new sign for the restaurant, the entertainer took matters into his own hands and ran for mayor. He retained local conservative talk radio host Marshall Gilbert (heard regularly on KNWQ) as his campaign manager in a successful bid that not only put Bono back in the public eye, but fueled his later campaign for a seat on the United States Congress, a position he held until his death in a skiing accident in 1998. His widow, Mary Bono (now Mary Bono Mack), filled the vacancy left by her husband and later campaigned successfully on her own. She was defeated by Democrat Raul Ruiz in the 2012 election, and moved to Florida. Both Sonny Bono and Frank Sinatra are buried at Desert Memorial Park in Cathedral City.
The La Quinta Resort and Club, a series of bungalows built in 1926 in what was then known as Marshall's Cove is the oldest resort in the valley. Frank Capra wrote the script for 1937 Lost Horizon poolside there, in the La Quinta Cove where the resort is located. Capra died in La Quinta and is buried in the nearby Coachella Valley Public Cemetery.
So fond was Walt Disney of his property at the Smoke Tree Ranch in Palm Springs that he often wore a tie tac which was in the shape of the Smoke Tree Ranch logo. Disney reluctantly sold the property to help finance the construction of Disneyland. Partners, bronze sculptures of Disney standing next to Mickey Mouse in each of the Disney theme parks clearly show the brand on Disney's tie tac.
Clint Eastwood formerly owned a restaurant called the Hog's Breath Inn in Old Town La Quinta. The restaurant is currently owned by the Kaiser Restaurant Group, but maintains the Clint Eastwood inspired motif.
TV producer and media mogul Merv Griffin owned a home and ranch which is now part of the PGA West community. It was known as the "Griffin Ranch", but the land was sold and became an equestrian ranch housing tract and was annexed by the city of La Quinta.
The generation-defining novel , by Canadian novelist Douglas Coupland, describes the angst of those born between roughly 1960 and 1965 (Generation X-ers refers to those born from 1960 to 1982) and is set in the Palm Springs of the late 1980s.
A second classic 1980s novel, Less than Zero, a tale of disaffected, rich teenagers of Los Angeles, has its climactic scenes of excess and despair set in Palm Springs. The film Less than Zero was made in 1987, directed by Marek Kanievska and starring Andrew McCarthy, Robert Downey Jr. and Jami Gertz.
Parts of 'Highway Dragnet, 1954, were filmed in the Valley.
Another famous movie filmed in the Coachella Valley (as well as Yucca Valley and Twentynine Palms, to the north) is It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. It even includes the former Desert Air airport, now the site of the Rancho Las Palmas Resort and Spa in Rancho Mirage. The airfield escape scene in A Night in Casablanca was filmed at present-day Palm Springs International Airport; Mount San Jacinto is clearly seen in the background.
Most of Robert Altman's 1977 avant-garde drama 3 Women was shot in the geographical region surrounding Coachella Valley.
Tex Avery made a brief reference to Palm Springs via a Visual gag in his 1948 animated short for MGM, The Cat That Hated People. In the showroom of the "Moonbeam Rocket Company", a tiny Spacecraft with a sign showing its intended destination of Palm Springs is shown among a series of large rockets also displaying signs indicating not terrestrial but rather their galactic destinations.
The early 1960s would see the movie Palm Springs Weekend filmed on location. A humorous situation involving four drunk LAPD policemen in a rented aircraft attempting to reclaim a Palm Springs golf course in the name of the local Indian tribes can be found in the 1975 novel, The Choirboys.
An episode of The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show titled "The Ruby Yacht of Omar Khayyam" announces the upcoming second installment of the episode as "Rimsky & Korsakov Go to Palm Springs, or Song of Indio".
In the 1984 music video by Tears for Fears' Everybody Wants to Rule the World was shot on location in the Coachella Valley. The rock video features scenes of a few local landmarks: the dinosaur structures near Cabazon, the windmill farms, scenery along Interstate 10 and state route 111, a scene of two dancers appear in a gas station on state route 86, and the shores of the Salton Sea.
In 1988, "The Race" by Swiss dance band Yello featured a fictitious sportscaster talking about the "thirty-first annual formula race" in Palm Springs. While Palm Springs did briefly host an annual Grand Prix, it ran for considerably fewer than thirty-one years.
In the 1990s two television series shows P.S. I Luv U and Phenom, the characters and plots were set in Palm Springs.
In 2006, The CW television network had a teen drama series Hidden Palms is set in a gated desert community near Palm Springs, although there is a real Hidden Palms in Palm Desert. By irony, the real gated community is adjacent to Palm Desert High school.
In local Tyler Hilton's song "When It Comes", he references Palm Desert's strip of high-class fashion and dining singing, "When I'm cruising El Paseo / In my off-white coup back '65."
A majority of the 2007 film Alpha Dog was shot in Palm Springs.
The helicopter scene in was filmed in the windfarm outside of Palm Springs.
The city was mentioned on an episode of Comedy Central's Reno 911! by sergeant/lieutenant Jim (Doug) Dangle, an openly gay character of the show. He would hang out in Palm Springs, as well in San Francisco and West Hollywood, but he eventually chose Reno as his hometown.
In an episode of the animated comedy Family Guy On the Road to Rhode Island, baby Stewie and his friend, Brian (a talking dog) figured a way to return home from vacation in Lois' parents home in Palm Springs.
On American Dad! Season 2, Episode 4 – Lincoln Lover, Stan Smith said to a speech in the Republican National Convention when representatives of the Gay Log Cabin Republicans were present: "Invite half of Palm Springs...oh, invite everyone in Palm Springs..." based on a belief based on a survey by a demographic think tank on about Half of the city's population are Gay or GLBT people.
In the game Grand Theft Auto V, the Coachella Valley area is represented as Sandy Shores in the Grand Theft Auto franchise, and therefore some characteristics of Coachella Valley is mirrored in the Sandy Shores area in the game.
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