Studies of campsites in the Morongo basin indicate that 10,000 years ago, ancient people inhabited the area now known as Palm Springs, California. That was in the Stone Age, during which time the inhabitants used bows and arrows, made baskets, fashioned pottery and wove fabrics from yucca fiber. This establishes Palm Springs as one of the oldest villages on the western continent.

The relatively modern discovery of this area took place with the Spanish conquest of Alta California, and by 1774, Spanish soldiers, exploring new boundaries for their empire, came to be increasingly familiar on the Colorado desert as Spain pushed up through California. However, until the middle of the 19th century, Palm Springs was solely a paradise for Cahuilla Indians of the Agua Caliente tribe and few members of the tribe had seen a white man.

In 1853, a government survey party, headed by Lt. R.S. William P. Blake, a geologist, made the first modern discovery of Palm Springs and its mineral pool (30 feet in diameter) bubbling out of the hot sand. Traveling on horses and wagons through the desert, these men are credited with establishing the first wagon route through the San Gorgonio Pass. In 1872, Palm Springs became a stop on the Bradshaw Stage Coach Line between Prescott, Arizona and Los Angeles.

Following the route surveyed by Lt. Williamson, in 1877, Southern Pacific completed its railroad line through the desert to encourage the westward expansion of rail transportation. Odd numbered sections of land for ten miles on each side of the tracks became the private property of Southern Pacific. Later, the even-numbered sections of land were given to the Indians, which created the checkerboard pattern of growth that is still evident in the Palm Springs area.