// Workers AI · dad joke modeWhat did Dos Palmas Spring say to the other spring? "You're a pal to me

Dos Palmas Spring
Dos Palmas Oasis in February 2017.
Location within southern California Location within California Location within the United States
Interactive map of Dos Palmas Spring
Name origin	Spanish: Two Palms
Location	Colorado Desert (Eastern Coachella Valley)
Coordinates	33.509°N 115.827°W / 33.509; -115.827
Type	Artesian spring

Dos Palmas
Ghost town former stagecoach stop
Interactive map of Dos Palmas
Country	United States
State	California
County	Riverside
Mexican Camp	1823
Stagecoach Stop	1862
Abandoned	1877
Named for	Fan Palms
Elevation	80 ft (24 m)
GNISTooltip Geographic Names Information System feature ID	241575

Dos Palmas Spring (Spanish: Dos Palmascode: spa promoted to code: es ) is an artesian spring at the foot of the Orocopia Mountains in Riverside County, California. It is the most prevalent and historic Spring of several such springs in the area that create an oasis in the Colorado Desert. The spring was a crucial stagecoach stop on the Bradshaw Trail.

History

Dos Palmas Spring was a Watering hole and seasonal village for Cahuilla natives traveling across the Colorado Desert between the Colorado River and San Gorgonio Pass for millennia. The Cahuillas would reach the Springs via a prehistoric trail known as the Cahuilla-Halchidhoma Trail. Dos Palmas also had a Trail connecting to the Yuma Crossing further South.

Romero Expedition

Lieutenant José María Estudillo, Camped with his expeditionary force at Dos Palmas for three days in December 1823.

In December 1823, forty-two years after the main southern trail connecting Mexico to California closed due to a massacre of Spanish settlers perpetrated by Yuma natives, California Governor Argüello ordered Captain José Romero & Lieutenant José María Estudillo to find an alternate overland route from San Gabriel to Tucson. The Party departed from the San Gabriel Mission and tracked east through San Gorgonio Pass into the Colorado Desert, where Cahuillas encountered and escorted them along the Cahuilla–Halchidhoma trail to Dos Palmas Oasis. Captain Romero referred to the Springs as the swamp of the Palms. The Mexican Expeditionary force camped at the spring from December 30, 1823 to January 2, 1824. During their stay, they traded tobacco with the Cahuillas and gave them a horse carcass that had drowned in the springs.

The Romero expedition successfully established a mail courier route into mainland Mexico for communication with the internal provinces. Dos Palmas became a prevalent landmark and rest stop on this route through the Colorado Desert.

In January 1847, Mexican General José María Flores made use of the trail and escaped to Sonora with around 36 Mexican soldiers after their defeat at the Battle of La Mesa. Romero followed the Cahuilla–Halchidhoma trail, passing east of the San Gorgonio Pass into Dos Palmas, then across the Algodones Dunes, and finally reached the Yuma Crossing. At the time, the Americans did not know about this route, which ensured his safety from being apprehended by the American military.

Smith Survey

In September 1857, as part of petitioning the John Butterfield mail route to pass from Yuma to San Bernardino, instead of Los Angeles or San Diego, a public petition was presented to the board of Supervisors asking that a road be surveyed from San Bernardino to the frontier of the Colorado Desert into Yuma. Dr. Isaac W. Smith from San Gorgonio Pass was elected to lead the survey; Smith previously had retraced General Flores' route 7 years earlier when Smith immigrated into California via the Yuma Crossing. This expedition was named the "Smith Survey".

In Summer 1858, Warren Hall, the Southern California Division Superintendent, organized a working party to set up water points and sink wells, and to build stage stations along the trail. Efforts were abandoned after finding it impossible to develop water stops over the one hundred miles of wagon road between Dos Palmas and Yuma, through the arid Algodones Dunes. The Butterfield Overland Mail was not awarded to San Bernardino.

Stagecoach Stop

Further information: Bradshaw Trail

From 1862, Dos Palmas became a camp and watering stop for gold prospectors and other travelers along the Bradshaw Trail between San Bernardino and the gold mining boomtown of La Paz, Arizona and later to nearby Ehrenberg that replaced it. A stage stop called Dos Palmas was established there for the Bradshaw and Yuma roads. This spring and stage station was the site of the murder of Herman Ehrenberg on October 9, 1866.

For a short time in May – June, 1877, there was a post office at that location.

Preservation area

Main article: Dos Palmas Preserve

The Dos Palmas Spring is now part of the Dos Palmas Preserve a 14,000-acre preserve created to protect important biological resources. The oasis with its hundreds of desert fan palms and pools fed by artesian springs and seepage from the nearby Coachella Canal form a wetland that offers shelter from the hot, dry Colorado Desert to a variety of both threatened or endangered and more common animal species. These include the endangered Yuma Rail, the Desert Pupfish and the Orocopia Sage.

Gallery

• 
  Fan Palms at the Springs
• 
  Release of endemic species, the Desert Pupfish
• 
  View of San Jacinto Peak from Dos Palmas
• 
  Fan Palm on fire, during a controlled burn
• 
  Controlled fire at the Spring
• 
  Pier at one of the Dos Palmas ponds
• 
  Main Spring

External links

• Gary L. Shumway, Larry Vredenburgh, Russell Hartill, Desert Fever: An Overview of Mining History of the California Desert Conservation Area; February, 1980, complete pdf version
• Gary L. Shumway, Larry Vredenburgh, Russell Hartill, Desert Fever: An Overview of Mining History of the California Desert Conservation Area; Riverside County, February, 1980
  • Desert Fever: An Overview of Mining History of the California Desert Conservation Area; Riverside County, End Notes
• Randall Henderson, Waterhole on the Old Bradshaw Trail, Desert Magazine, January 1947