1913 Cabot Yerxa Settles In Desert Hot Springs – 100 Years Of Palm Springs History –
In our continuing series on Palm Springs History, we can now learn about Cabot Yerxa. As an early settler and explorer, he’s best known for digging a now famous well in Desert Hot Springs and discovered guess what? The now famous hot mineral springs enjoyed by many tourists; especially those from Europe.
So just who was Cabot Yerxa and why should we remember him? Well aside from the above text, he discovered a second well nearby that the pure and cold water of the mission Springs Aquifer. And that well is why till this day, Desert Hot Springs has some of the finest tasting tap water in the Palm Springs Area and in reality, around the US and the World!
The cold water is just as pure as the hot water. And it’s delicious too. So delicious, in fact, that our municipal drinking water has won gold, silver, and bronze medals over the last few years in an annual international water competition (which made some towns in Europe pretty envious).
Getting back to Cabot….. he began construction on his famous pueblo-style home in 1939 working on it until is death in 1965at the age of 81. The house was abandoned and later a DHS businessman, Cole Eyraud purchased the property, restored the home, and later his estate donated it to the city for use as a museum.
The pueblo structure is hand-made, created from found and recycled objects. It’s a four story 5000 sq ft structure with 35 rooms, 150 windows and 65 doors.
Other facts include:
- buckboard wagon parts
- telephone poles
- pieces of abandoned homesteads
Of further interest on a guided tour is:
- A Journey through the life of Cabot Yerxa
- See artifacts collected over 100 years ago
- Learn of his travels through Dakota territory, Cuba, Alaska, France, California and the Southwest.
This video is kinda fun and hopefully shows enough to make you want to visit the Cabot Museum in Desert Hot Springs.
Finally a few other important happenings around the world 100 years ago:
- Ford introduced the first moving assembly line to make cars
- The first crossword puzzle published in New York
- Pancho Villa takes Torreon after a 3 day battle in the Mexican Revolution
- Death Valley reaches 134 degrees making it the highest temperature ever recorded in the US- YIKES