Palm Desert, California

The same ground, surveyed 80 years apart. Drag the handle to wipe between them. Both sheets are United States Geological Survey originals; neither has been altered.

1904 1984

Buildings and businesses the archive holds for this place. Each opens its own page, with the source record it came from.

On the National Register 1 record

• Miles C. Bates Houselisted 2018

Palm Desert grew from 48,445 to 51,163 between 2010 and 2020. These are the recorded population figures Wikidata holds for this place, reached through the Geographic Names Information System number this page is keyed on rather than by name, so they belong to this place and not to another of the same name. Most are census counts, but not all are: an early figure may be a founding or settlement estimate, and an estimate published within five years of a census is left out. The change column is computed, and is left blank where more than 20 years separate a figure from the one before it, because a gap that long is not a change between two counts.

Matched by testing this settlement's coordinate against the published boundary of every sheet in the United States Geological Survey's historical collection. Each opens the scanned sheet at the Survey.

• 1904 USGS Indio quadrangle1:125000, 7 printings
• 1941 USGS Toro Peak quadrangle1:62500
• 1944 USGS Toro peak quadrangle1:62500
• 1947 USGS Santa Ana quadrangle1:250000
• 1949 USGS Santa Ana quadrangle1:250000
• 1956 USGS Santa Ana quadrangle1:250000
• 1959 USGS La Quinta quadrangle1:24000, 4 printings
• 1959 USGS Palm Desert quadrangle1:62500, 4 printings
• 1959 USGS Santa Ana quadrangle1:250000, 3 printings
• 1960 USGS Santa Ana quadrangle1:250000, 2 printings
• 1965 USGS Santa Ana quadrangle1:250000
• 1984 USGS Palm Springs quadrangle1:100000, 3 printings

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 716 fires within 5 miles of Palm Desert between 1992 and 2020, burning about 6,170 acres in total. 19 started naturally. 70 were recorded as arson. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

The most recent of them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service that recorded it.

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

• Palm Desert Country
• Edom
• Rancho Mirage
• Bermuda Dunes
• Cahuilla Hills
• Indian Wells

Every fire recorded in Riverside County

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 5 workings within 5 miles of Palm Desert: 4 occurrences, 1 prospect. None of them still produces. What was taken out: Tungsten, Asbestos, Limestone, General. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Every working recorded in Riverside County

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Palm Desert in 17 storm reports between 1998 and 2025: 6 flash flood, 3 thunderstorm wind, 2 lightning, 2 debris flow. No death or injury is recorded in these reports. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date opens the federal record of that event.

Every storm recorded in Riverside County

The eight closest, with where each one stands in the county. Distances are straight-line, computed from the Geographic Names Information System coordinates.

Matched on this settlement's Geographic Names Information System number rather than its name, so it cannot be a different place of the same name in another state.

This settlement is recorded in the Geographic Names Information System as feature 1652767. The sheet list is computed by point-in-boundary test against the United States Geological Survey's historical topographic inventory. Both are works of the United States government and carry no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.

Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.

Mines and quarries. USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.

Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.