When we leave, we try to find somewhere less crowded and warm. We always end up in Southern California around Thanksgiving or Christmas to spend time with the parts of our family that still live there.
This Blog has a tendency to lag behind our current location because we don't have time to prepare it while we are traveling across the country exploring.
Because of that delay, we are never anywhere near the location of the current Blog when you finally get to see it.
Currently, we are in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Today's chapter of the Blog comes to you from our visit to Desert Hot Springs, near Palm Springs, California.
We stopped in Desert Hot Springs to visit an RV park we found on Passport America ( https://www.passport-america.com/members/membership-rates ). This campground offered Passport America members 50% off the regular rate so we decided to stop here and explore the area.
Our Roadside America App
( https://www.roadsideamerica.com )told us about Cabot's Old Indian Pueblo Museum and away we went.
When we arrived at the Museum, we saw a large adobe building with lots of interesting artifacts surrounding it.
We went to the gift shop/ticket sales and bought tickets for the tour. While we were waiting for the tour to begin, we took a few pictures outside.
Signs around the property explained why this amazing looking place happened to pop up in Desert Hot Springs.
It turns out that in 1913, Cabot Yerxa moved to the then undeveloped area and staked out one of the first 160 acre homesteads in the area.
The problem was that the area he staked out didn't have any water, and this being THE DESERT, water was necessary and hard to find.
Several times a week, Cabot would have to walk 7 miles each way to the train station located at 7 Palms on the dirt path that lead towards what is now Palm Springs.
At the rail station, he was able to load up his containers with a few days worth of water and then he would head home to continue to develop his homestead.
On one occasion, he spoke to a local Indian who started teasing Cabot about how far he was walking to get water. When Cabot told the Indian that this was the closest water, the Indian told him that the great Indian ancestors passed down stories of great underground springs right near where Cabot was building his cabin.
Cabot went home and using a pick and shovel started digging a well, hoping to find water. To his surprise, he didn't have to dig very far and he found water. There was only one problem. . . . . the water was so hot you couldn't touch it ( 132º ).
When Cabot told his Indian friend about his discovery and the problem with the hot water, the Indian suggested that Cabot dig a second well a short distance away.
Cabot trudged seven miles home and started digging again. It wasn't too long before he again struck water . . . . . this time the water was cold.
It seemed like a miracle. Not only did he now have hot and cold water. The water didn't have the usual sulphur smell of hot spring water and was odorless and tasteless.
It wasn't long before word got out and soon the area around Cabot's homestead was called Miracle Hill.
Years later, geologists would discover the San Andreas Fault and determine that it ran right through Cabot's property, causing a displacement of the earth in such a way that the underground aquifers were both heated and cooled right where Cabot dug his wells.
As Cabot roamed around the desert, he began to collect anything he found laying around. He would then bring it back to the homestead and incorporate it into his building projects.
This included old telegraph poles, discarded railroad ties and cables from abandoned mines in the area. It was all then creatively wound into the homestead.
You have to remember that this is the desert where the summer temperatures can easily reach 110º to 120º so shade was important and just about anything that could provide shade had value.
Cabot also utilized the insulating properties of adobe style brick to build his structures.
The foot thick walls helped keep the summer heat out as well as the winter cold.
Cabot had a secret recipe for his adobe. Instead of just mixing local dirt and water, placing it in a mold and letting it dry, he would add a handful of cement to each brick. This made the finished product much more resistant to the occasional flooding downpours that had a tendency to wash away traditional adobe homes in the area.
After a few minutes of looking around outside, the tour guide rounded up the 12 visitors that would be taking the tour. She told us that the reason the tour size was so small was that even though the the home was 4 stories high and over 5,000 square feet in area, each of the rooms were so small that only one small tour group at a time could enter.
As we began the tour, the tour guide also told us that we would not be allowed to take any pictures once we were inside.
Bummer!!
The tour wound us through several of the 65 doors that led to some of the 35 rooms which were lit by light through over 150 different, hand made windows.
As you can see from the above photo, there are over 30 different roof levels.
The tour guide spoke to us for the entire hour that it took to tour the portions of the house open for visitors, only stopping every once in a while to take a breath. She really had a lot of information and I will try to only hit a few of the highlights.
Cabot was born in 1883, and when he was 14, he began working and saving all of his money. At 16, he told his parents he was heading to Alaska to get rich during the gold rush.
Before he left, he filled up 2 big steamer trunks with cigars and chewing tobacco. When he got to Alaska, he found out that mining for gold was really hard work so instead, he rented a small storefront building and started selling the tobacco products that he had brought.
Soon, he rented out the front porch to a barber and another vendor for more than he was paying for rent and that was when he discovered that he was an entrepreneur.
He never went back to mining but made a fortune anticipating and supplying the needs of all of the miners.
Eventually, he left Alaska and ended up in the desert, where he filed homestead papers. He was 30 years old and would continue to build on his homestead until his death in 1965 at the age of 81.
I was only able to find a few pictures of the inside of his home on line.
The rooms were small and often dusty if they were on the ground floor. That is because the floors there were dirt. Cabot left the floors dirt as part of the air conditioning system.
After he discovered both hot and cold springs, he piped the water to the home and had hot and cold running water. Every morning and throughout the day in the summer, he would wet the dirt floors. As the day progressed, the water would evaporate, helping to cool the house.
He would also strategically open many of the 150 windows, depending on which way the wind was blowing. He would open the downstairs, upwind windows and the upstairs, downwind windows to create a natural forced air ventilation system.
He also installed roof access hatches that allowed him to sleep on the roof when there were cool evenings and also allowed the hot air to vent.
Cabot and his wife were also very talented artists. The house was filled with interesting bits of art.
This hand carved statue was almost 5 feet tall and depicts how some people speak out of both sides of their mouth.
There were also more interesting things outside.
He had a very accurate weather machine.
There was also a statue carved by Peter Toth, which is one of his 74 big Indian heads located in all 50 states and Canada.
This statue was carved out of a log, and it was pretty tall.
43 feet tall!!
One final interesting note is that Cabot Yerxa died in 1965 and shortly after his death his wife moved back to her family in Texas, abandoning the house.
For several years after that, the house was unoccupied and was slowly stripped of many of the furnishings and artifacts that were left behind.
Eventually, it became a real nuisance as a party and drug house for the locals.
That is when the City of Desert Hot Springs decided to tear it down.
One local man objected to the City's plan and moved into the house, preventing its demolition. Eventually, the City was able to force his eviction and after removing him, sent bulldozers to level the place.
At the last minute, many locals surrounded the property, refusing to yield to the City and its bulldozers. Finally, through negotiations, the City changed their minds and a Foundation was formed to restore and maintain the property.
We really enjoyed our visit to the Cabot Indian Pueblo and if you are ever near Desert Hot Springs, try to find the time for a visit.
Oh, I guess by now you know that Cabot Yerxa was the founder of the town of Desert Hot Springs.
Try to get out there and explore our Country and please stay in touch,
Tom & Suzie
This was as interesting as the Flagler Mansion but obviously in a different way. I was quite impressed with the desert weather rock. We should all have one of those. Innovative man, that Cabot. And to move from Alaska to the desert....the man was tough as nails.
ReplyDelete