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Image / Little Araby rock houses, Palm Springs

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Title
Little Araby rock houses, Palm Springs
Alternative Title
Security Pacific National Bank Photo Collection
Contributing Institution
Los Angeles Public Library
Collection
Los Angeles Public Library Photo Collection
Rights Information
Images available for reproduction and use. Please see the Ordering & Use page at http://tessa.lapl.org/OrderingUse.html for additional information.
Description
Title supplied by cataloger.
The puebloesque rock houses were designed by Lee Miller and built in the late 1920's; the current address is 2550 S. Araby Drive.; Palm Springs is a desert city in Riverside County, approximately 111 miles east of Los Angeles. It is one of nine adjacent cities that make up the Coachella Valley, and is sheltered by the San Bernardino Mountains to the north, Santa Rosa Mountains to the south, San Jacinto Mountains to the west, and Little San Bernardino Mountains to the east. This geography gives Palm Springs its hot, dry climate with 354 days of sunshine and less than 6 inches of rain annually. The locale features a variety of native desert flora and fauna, and a notable tree occurring in the wild and under cultivation is the California Fan Palm. The Agua Caliente band of Cahuilla Indians have lived in the area they named "Se-Khi" (boiling water) for thousands of years. Their reservation occupies 32,000 acres of which 6,700 acres lie within the city limits, making the Agua Caliente band the city's largest landowner. In the early 1800s, Spanish explorers named the area "Agua Caliente" (hot water), but by the mid-1860s the name "Palm Springs" came into common usage when the land was first surveyed by U.S. Government surveyors who noted that a local mineral spring was located at the base of "two bunches of palms". Palm Springs has become known as "The Playground of the Stars", and many famous people have had homes in the city or have vacationed here. Golf, swimming, tennis, horseback riding and hiking in the nearby desert and mountain areas are major forms of recreation. As of 2007, population stands at 42,350.
A woman, possibly Perle Wheeler Martin, poses in front of one of the rock houses in the Little Araby Tract of Palm Springs. The hanging sign (right of center) reads, "Casa Contenta, Perle Wheeler Martin."
Type
image
Format
1 photographic print :b&w ;11 x 14 cm. on sheet 21 x 26 cm.
Photographic prints
Identifier
00079400
Security Pacific National Bank Collection
Palm Springs.; N-001-115.10 4x5
CARL0000082435
http://173.196.26.125/cdm/ref/collection/photos/id/112630
Subject
Women--California--Palm Springs
Stone houses--California--Palm Springs
Dwellings--California--Palm Springs
Deserts--California--Palm Springs
Mountains--California, Southern
Miller, Lee
San Jacinto Mountains (Calif.)
Palm Springs (Calif.)

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