Wind machine predated iconic desert turbines

Dew Oliver’s Wind Turbine in the eastern San Gorgonio Pass, circa 1927. Wind would enter the large opening to the right and funnel through a series of fans in the smaller cylinder, all turning electrical generators.

By STEVE LECH
Press-Enterprise

When anyone travels between Banning and Palm Springs, he is struck by the seemingly thousands of wind-generating turbines that mar the view of the upper Coachella Valley.

Most of these date to the 1980s and 1990s, but they are not the first such venture to try to tame the wind for energy production.

For that, we must go back to 1926.

In that year, a failed Seal Beach land speculator named Dew Oliver came through the Whitewater area. Convinced he could turn wind into electricity, Oliver traversed the eastern San Gorgonio Pass looking for a location with the strongest and most constant source of wind.

He found such a point on the A. J. Warner ranch just north of the present-day I-10, about half a mile west of the Whitewater exit.

In late 1926, he began construction of Oliver’s Wind Machine.

The machine was basically a 50-foot-long, 12-foot-diameter metal cylinder mounted on a turntable to take advantage of the shifting winds. On the windward side, a large funnel opening to about 50 feet in diameter was secured to the cylinder to funnel the wind into the machine.

In 1955, Harry James interviewed a few local ranchers who had witnessed Oliver’s machine in operation, and they stated that he had generated about 20 horsepower with his “Rube Goldberg contraption.”

However, Oliver’s brush with alternative energy was very short-lived.

First of all, the generator was about 12 miles from Banning and 9 miles from Palm Springs, the nearest population centers at the time. Even if Oliver had generated a substantial amount of power, most of it would have been lost in the transmission lines going to either place.

But the real killer of the project was Oliver himself.

Oliver was a slick salesman, offering himself up as a rich Texas financier. When it looked like his machine would work, he applied for a license to begin selling stock in an energy company.

However, he sold the stock before the license was issued, which got him in trouble.

Hauled into court in Riverside in 1930, Oliver was tried and convicted of fraud and selling securities without a license. He served six months in jail, and then left the area with no trace.

Oliver died in August 1949 in Los Angeles, never realizing his dream.

Jennie Kelly Memorial at Salton Sea Yacht Club

May 1, 2010-Grand reopening of the restored North Shore Beach & Yacht Club at the Salton Sea (SLWORKING2-Flickr)

Kelly Supporters Rally to Bring Back the Salton Sea History Museum

North Shore, California--The Salton Sea History Museum celebrates the life of its founder, Jennie Kelly, on January 30, 2016, 1-5 pm, at Albert Frey's North Shore Beach and Yacht Club. Kelly, a Salton Sea resident for 35 years, died October 11, 2015, of cancer. She was 66.

Jennie was known throughout the Coachella Valley and beyond for her passionate advocacy for the Salton Sea and its history. She led the fight to save Rancho Dos Palmas, fought to save John Hilton's Art and Gem Shop, launched a groundbreaking exhibit of Salton Sea art (Valley of the Ancient Lake) and established the Salton Sea History Museum, at the urging of the late Riverside County Supervisor Roy Wilson.

More than 17,000 visitors from all over the world stopped by the modernist seaside landmark to learn about the Sea's history, before the museum was temporarily closed in 2011.

"To put the museum back where it belongs--that was Jennie's final wish," says Kelly's husband, Steve Johnson. Supporters are lobbying to have the museum reopened so the extensive archives gathered by Jennie can once again be shared with the public. Jennie's friends believe telling the story of the Sea is intrinsic to saving it, and that the museum is an integral part of that message.

Born in Arizona, Kelly worked as a model as a young woman, then as a technical illustrator. After moving to the Sea, she founded the first Chamber of Commerce in North Shore and also chaired the Community Council. She served on the Indio Sheriff's Mounted Posse and as a volunteer firefighter, as well as serving on the Riverside County Historical Commission. She was an avid backcountry horsewoman who often rode in the Indio Hills above North Shore. "Everything she did, she went into it with passion," says Johnson.

The Memorial reception is from 1-5 pm on January 30, 2016. For information about the event or efforts to restore the Museum, please call (760) 250-8927 or e-mail achsshm@aol.com. The museum's website is: www.SaltonSeaMuseum.org

Southern Pacific Railroad made path through the "heart of the desert"

Floodwaters from the Colorado River filled the Salton Sink in 1906 -1907. The Southern Pacific Railroad tracks had to be moved. (Photo courtesy of Salton Sea History Museum)

Denise Goolsby
The Desert Sun

The transcontinental railroad opened the doors to America, especially those lightly traveled areas where Herculean efforts were required to cross hundreds of miles of remote wilderness, steep mountains, and endless desert.

Discovery of gold in 1848 focused world attention on California and the Pacific Coast region. At the time, early settlers had few options in cross country travel: An arduous overland journey across the plains by oxen or mules, or long ocean voyages via Panama or around Cape Horn.

A growing sentiment in the west and east favored a railroad that would bind the nation closer together.

The roots of Southern Pacific Railroad's path through the Coachella Valley can be traced to the country's pre-Civil War days and the creation of the Central Pacific Railroad Company of California, incorporated June 28, 1861.

The brainchild of Collis P. Huntington, Leland Stanford, Mark Hopkins and Charles Crocker, the corporation was formed to build the western portion of the Pacific Railroad — a transcontinental link from Sacramento, east over the Sierra Nevada Mountains.

Construction began in Sacramento in 1863 followed by authorization of Congress in 1863. The line traversed 690 miles over the mountains and across Nevada to meet the Union Pacific at Promontory, Utah, where the last spike was driven on May 10, 1869.

In 1865, the Southern Pacific Railroad was organized to build lines from San Francisco to San Diego and eastward to rails being proposed to reach westward from New Orleans.

The surveyors for the Southern Pacific route reached the site of Indio, known as Indian Wells at the time, on March 25, 1872. They reported that this point was halfway between Los Angeles and Yuma, Ariz. A perfect spot for a train depot.

Southern Pacific acquired a 22-mile railroad from Los Angeles to Wilmington, opened in October, 1869 and construction began during 1873 on lines north and east out of the city.

Trains were operated to Colton on July 16, 1895 and to Indio on May 29, 1876.

After the railroad's arrival in 1876, Indio really started to grow. The first permanent building was the craftsman style Southern Pacific Depot station and hotel. Southern Pacific tried to make life as comfortable as it could for their workers in order to keep them from leaving such a difficult area to live in at the time. It was the center of all social life in the desert with a fancy dining room. Dances were hosted on Friday nights.

While Indio started as a railroad town, it developed into an agricultural area shortly thereafter. Onions, cotton, grapes, citrus and dates thrived in the arid climate due to the ingenuity of farmers finding various means of attaining water — first through artesian wells.

The arrival of the Southern Pacific Railroad would leave an indelible mark on the Palm Springs-based Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians and shaped the future of the tribe. In the 1860s, the Federal government granted the railroad ten miles of odd-numbered sections of land on each side of the railroad right-of-way.

In 1876, when President Ulysses S. Grant established the present Agua Caliente Indian Reservation by executive order, only the even-numbered sections were still available. This created the reservation's "checkerboard" pattern.

In 1875, the Cahuilla Indians began working on the construction of the railroad. The tracks ran about six miles north of the Palm Springs Way Station, which served as a stagecoach stop from 1865 until the rail line was completed in 1887.

The Southern Pacific built a Spanish-styled railroad station in the 1930s, located in North Palm Springs on Tipton Road off Highway 111.

By this time, Palm Springs had already become a popular tourist destination and was known as a world famous winter playground for Hollywood stars. The Southern Pacific, traveling on what became known as the Sunset Route, now delivered travelers right at the doorstep of this thriving desert community.

A 1914 brochure touting the Southern Pacific Sunset Route as the "Best Route to the California 1915 Expositions" — the Panama-Pacific Exposition was being held in San Francisco and the Panama-California Exposition was taking place in San Diego — provided colorful descriptions of the stops along the route, which originated in New Orleans.

This is how the railroad's literature depicted the desert 100 years ago:

"Yuma, the Colorado River and California is reached 1,754 miles west from New Orleans … the route is through a region that is peculiar and interesting. At Imperial Junction, a branch line of the Southern Pacific runs south to the celebrated Imperial Valley, which has sprung into a wonderful existence in a night, almost, because of its splendid fertility, its varied, almost tropical products, freedom from frosts, great volume of water for irrigation, taken from the Colorado, and its rapid development and adaptability for all forms of agriculture, yet in the heart of the desert."

That year, 1914, the valley shipped more than 4,000 cars of cantaloupes alone, to all sections of the United States. From a waste only a few years ago, the Imperial Valley now has a population of 25,000 with fine towns, street cars, clubs, newspapers, excellent hotels and a high class civilization.

The journey is then through the Salton Valley and along the northern shores of the Salton Sea made by an overflow of the Colorado Rivers some years ago. Here the train runs for miles below the sea level, at Salton reaching the bottom of a great depression at a depth of 253 feet. This condition is peculiar and unequaled and is not even approximated by any other railroad in the world. The route through the California desert passes through Thermal, Coachella and Indio, all below sea level, and climbs the divide, reaching the apex at Beaumont, California."

Next week: Southern Pacific Railroad History in the Coachella Valley, Part II.

Sources: City of Palm Springs, Agua Caliente Cultural Museum, Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians, Historian Pat Laflin, Coachella Valley Water District, Central Pacific Railroad website, Michael L. Grace (Palm Springs Rail Heritage blog)

Cahuilla dug wells near La Quinta's Point Happy

Point Happy Date Gardens at the intersection of Highway 111 and Washington Street in the 1960s. This is now the site of Vons shopping center. (Photo: Photo courtesy of La Quinta Historical Society)

Denise Goolsby
The Desert Sun

The area just east of the Santa Rosa Mountains, where its foothills jut out into the desert near the intersection of Highway 111 and Washington Street in La Quinta, used to be home to the Cahuilla Indians. Later, it was a watering hole along a stagecoach route, and for many years, a working ranch.

The sprawling land where the ranch once stood is now occupied by Plaza La Quinta, a bustling shopping center anchored by a Vons grocery store and the Estates at Point Happy, an enclave of luxury homes.

The Cahuilla Indians found the area — which became known as Point Happy at the turn of the 20th century — a hospitable spot, as the Santa Rosas provided protection from fierce desert sandstorms and flash flooding.

Along the wash, the Cahuillas dug gently sloping pathways down to the springs below. The hand-dug "Indian Well" was located less than 300 yards from Point Happy. It was destroyed in the 100-year flood in 1916.

When gold was discovered in La Paz and Ehrenburg, Ariz. in 1862, Major William Bradshaw established the first trail through the Coachella Valley and across the Colorado Desert to California's neighboring state. Point Happy soon became a landmark for stagecoaches traveling the Bradshaw Trail. During this period, the stop began its tradition as a hospitable "watering hole" for desert travelers.

The area, tucked under the shadow of the Santa Rosas, was named after Norman "Happy" Lundbeck, an early desert settler who began homesteading the area in the early 1900s. Lundbeck established a stable and small store and sold wares to those traveling across the hot, dusty desert. A one-room elementary school was built on the property in 1916.

The Point Happy property and 135 adjoining acres were bought in 1922 by philanthropist Chauncey D. Clarke, who named it Point Happy Date Gardens. Clarke, who thought climactic conditions were similar to those in the Middle East, raised Arabian horses on the ranch for four years until his death in 1926.

J. Win Wilson, in a Los Angeles Times article dated March 8, 1925, said Clarke, "is a very enthusiastic booster for the dates and horses of the old world desert lands. The desert climate and condition, he believes, offer the finest training ground for making the horses both sure-footed and strong in shoulders and joints. In other words, he believes that conditions in the Coachella Valley are so similar to those in Arabia, where the Arab horses have been developed to perfection, as to afford ideal environment for the raising of this notable breed of equine."

The Times article described the agreeable conditions at the ranch, where at the time, Clarke had 11 horses — five stallions and six mares.

"His stud is provided with all modern conveniences: solid box walls, corrals, tank house and modern living quarters for his trainer. A quarter-mile track is also a feature, for regular exercising of his horses figures prominently in Mr. Clarke's plans."

Louise Rodarte Neeley, historian and a member of one of the city's pioneering families, recalls happy days at the ranch, where her father, Teofilo Rodarte was a foreman and her mother, Juanita, was the Clarke's housekeeper.

She said the ranch was filled with date palms and avocado, orange, fig, pecan, apricot, mulberry and grapefruit trees, row crops and sugar cane.

"We swam. We hiked. We had the mountain to the back of us," she said. "Growing up was happy. It was wonderful. Mother had chickens and a cow. We had the run of the place."

Her father was hired in 1923 and continued until his death in 1943. Her brother, Jess Rodarte was hired to tend the date trees.

Neeley said Mrs. Clarke's full-time gardener, Mr. Akahoshi, planted a large vegetable garden for home use and maintained an extensive rose garden and many varieties of annual flowers for the pleasure of their guests.

Knowing he was ill, Clarke sold his horses to the Kellogg Ranch in Pomona. Clarke died on Aug. 22, 1926. It is said that those horses became the breeding stock of the purebred Arabians in California.

His wife, Marie Clarke, a founder of the Hollywood Bowl, was instrumental in setting up and financially underwriting the Indio Women's Club. She continued to live on the ranch after her husband's death. She died on Oct. 30, 1948, leaving the property to Claremont College, which in turn, sold off parts of the property.

Point Happy Date Gardens was sold to William DuPont Jr., CEO of DuPont Chemical Corporation in the 1950s. He built a home in the Santa Rosa Mountains overlooking the ranch. To the southwest of the palm grove, he built a Spanish home with a pool and tennis court for friend Alice Marble, the top-ranked American woman tennis player in 1939.

Marble, a longtime Palm Desert resident, won 18 Grand Slam championships. She died at Desert Regional Medical Center in Palm Springs in 1990.

The house was finished on Dec. 16, 1965. DuPont Jr. died three days later. Portions of the ranch were sold off to subdividers.

The last owners of the ranch were Dr. Earl R. Kiernan and his wife Florence. By 2004, the final page was turned in the ranch's storied history with the construction of the Estates at Point Happy.

Sources: La Quinta Historical Society, La Quinta Museum, City of La Quinta Historic Context Statement, 1996.

Indian Wells plans for Carl Bray monument revived

The former Carl Bray House & Gallery building prior to its demolition in Indian Wells. Bray, known for his desert landscapes, bought property along Highway 111 in Indian Wells in the early 1950s. The city bought the land in 2009. (Omar Ornelas, The Desert Sun)

Xochitl Peña
The Desert Sun

INDIAN WELLS – Talk of creating a monument along Highway 111 to honor the late artist Carl Bray — in the spot where his home and gallery used to be — has taken place for years.

But recent renewed interest in the idea has the Indian Wells City Council taking up the subject during a study session next month.

Adele Ruxton, president of the Indian Wells Historic Preservation Foundation, hopes this time, the project will actually happen.

“It’s time. It’s like ‘OK let’s get something done.’ It’s something that has been on the (list) of things to do and then something else comes up,” she said.

On Aug. 21, the council is expected to provide direction to staff on the design of the monument, said Warren Morelion, the city’s community development director, via email.

“Once staff receives direction, it will go through the normal entitlement process. The plan is to get the project construct(ed) by next summer,” he said.

The city has been talking about an “interpretive exhibit” at the location where Bray’s home and gallery used to be since at least 2010.

Bray, known for his desert landscapes and most notably his paintings of the wispy smoke tree, bought property along Highway 111 in Indian Wells in the early 1950s for $1,000. His neighbors at the time included a few cabins, a dance hall and a couple businesses.

As Indian Wells developed, Bray’s paint palette sign and misshapen landscaping started to look out of place surrounded by golf courses and gated communities, but the property’s historic significance could not be ignored.

The property used to be the site of one of the largest Cahuilla villages in the valley.

Bray sold the land in about 2000 and moved to Banning. He died in 2011 at the age of 94.

Ruxton knew Bray personally, and visited him at least once a month after he moved.

“He had a great sense of humor. If you met him for the first time you would think, ‘I’ve known this man for my entire life,’ ” she said.

The city purchased the 14,148-square-foot former site in January 2009 for nearly $260,000 claiming the structures on the land posed a “safety hazard.”

The home and gallery were eventually demolished, causing debate between the city and those who wanted to see the buildings preserved.

Ruxton wanted the structures saved.

“That should be turned into something historic,” she said of the now-vacant site.

The historic preservation foundation will meet with city officials next month to talk about the monument, as well.

What had been envisioned, she said, was a monument worked into the landscape that bicyclists or walkers could access. There would be no place for people in cars to park, she added.

In 2012, city staff had anticipated costs of about $35,000 for the monument. Morelion said the city recently directed up to $65,000 for the project.

Resident Denny Booth believes even $30,000 is too much for the city to spend, especially at a time when funds are tight.

He thinks there are much cheaper options available.

“Put up a boulder with a bronze plaque,” he said.