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Shields Date Garden is a historic date palm orchard and tourist attraction in Indio, California, United States.
| | This article needs additional citations for verification .(November 2011) |
Shields Date Garden is a historic date palm orchard and tourist attraction in Indio, California, United States.
The company was founded in 1924 by Floyd and Bess (Lugton) Shields. Floyd Shields was one of the pioneering date farmers in the still-young date industry of the Coachella Valley. He bred a number of his own hybrids and varieties including the "Blonde" and "Brunette" varieties, grown exclusively at Shields to this day.
To help promote the exotic, difficult-to-grow fruit, Shields presented lectures to his customers on the cultivation of the date. The lectures proved to be a popular draw, leading Shields to incorporate a slide show and recorded soundtrack into a multimedia presentation designed to run on a continuous basis. A 39-page booklet, titled Coachella Valley desert trails: the Salton Sea saga and the romance and sex life of the date, was first published by the Shields in 1950 [1] and went through numerous editions. [2]
Shields' fifteen-minute presentation, Romance and Sex Life of the Date, modified only slightly over the years, is still shown today in a small theater at Shields. A modified and improved version of the Romance and Sex Life of the Date was created in 2007 [3] and now shown in the same theater.
Shields was also the inventor of date sugar and the date crystal. [4] Date sugar adds flavor to recipes and date crystals are a unique, dry blend of dates for use in cooking, on cold cereals and in date milkshakes. Date shakes and black date ice cream are popular treats sold over the counter at Shields.
The current building, with its sign depicting a knight in armor pointing toward the main entrance off Highway 111, has been in use since 1953. Skyrocketing land values in the area threatened the continued existence of Shields Date Gardens when the property was placed on the market. It was purchased by The Jewel Date Company in nearby Thermal, California, which is carrying on the traditions of the Shields at the same location with no intention of moving the Ranch Store.
Phoenix dactylifera, commonly known as date or date palm, is a flowering plant species in the palm family, Arecaceae, cultivated for its edible sweet fruit called dates. The species is widely cultivated across northern Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia, and is naturalized in many tropical and subtropical regions worldwide. P. dactylifera is the type species of genus Phoenix, which contains 12–19 species of wild date palms.
Coachella is a city in Riverside County, California; it is the easternmost city and namesake of the Coachella Valley, in Southern California's Colorado Desert.
Indio is a city in Riverside County, California, United States, in the Coachella Valley of Southern California's Colorado Desert region. It lies 23 miles (37 km) east of Palm Springs, 75 miles (121 km) east of Riverside, 127 miles (204 km) east of Los Angeles, 148 miles (238 km) northeast of San Diego, and 250 miles (402 km) west of Phoenix.
La Quinta is a desert resort city in Riverside County, California, United States. Located between Indian Wells and Indio, it is one of the nine cities of the Coachella Valley. The population was 37,467 at the 2010 census, up from 23,694 at the 2000 census. The Robb Report credits La Quinta as the leading golf destination in the US. Among those destinations is the La Quinta Resort and Club, a resort dating to 1926, where director Frank Capra wrote the screenplay for Lost Horizon. The Tom Fazio-designed golf course at The Quarry at La Quinta is ranked among the top 100 golf courses in the United States. In January 2008, the Arnold Palmer Classic Course at the city's SilverRock Golf Resort became one of the four host golf courses for the annual Bob Hope Chrysler Classic PGA golf tournament.
Palm Desert is a city in Riverside County, California, United States, in the Coachella Valley, approximately 14 miles (23 km) east of Palm Springs, 121 miles (195 km) northeast of San Diego and 122 miles (196 km) east of Los Angeles. The population was 48,445 at the 2010 census, up from 41,155 at the 2000 census. The city was one of the state's fastest growing in the 1980s and 1990s, beginning with 11,801 residents in 1980, doubling to 23,650 in 1990, 35,000 in 1995, and nearly double its 1990 population by 2000.
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The Palm Springs Aerial Tramway in Palm Springs, California, is the largest rotating aerial tramway in the world. It was opened in September 1963 as a way of getting from the floor of the Coachella Valley to near the top of San Jacinto Peak and was constructed in rugged Chino Canyon. Before its construction, the only way to the top of the mountain was to hike hours from Idyllwild. The rotating cars were added in 2000.
The Coachella Valley is an arid rift valley in the Colorado Desert of Southern California's Riverside County. In some places, it is also referred to as Greater Palm Springs, due to the greater prominence of that city to the others in the area and its popularity in the public mind. The valley extends approximately 45 mi (72 km) southeast from the San Gorgonio Pass to the northern shore of the Salton Sea and the neighboring Imperial Valley, and is approximately 15 mi (24 km) wide along most of its length. It is bounded on the northeast by the San Bernardino and Little San Bernardino Mountains, and on the southwest by the San Jacinto and Santa Rosa Mountains.
The Cahuilla, also known as ʔívil̃uqaletem or Ivilyuqaletem, are a Native American people of the various tribes of the Cahuilla Nation, living in the inland areas of southern California. Their original territory included an area of about 2,400 square miles (6,200 km2). The traditional Cahuilla territory was near the geographic center of Southern California. It was bounded to the north by the San Bernardino Mountains, to the south by Borrego Springs and the Chocolate Mountains, to the east by the Colorado Desert, and to the west by the San Jacinto Plain and the eastern slopes of the Palomar Mountains.
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The Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians of the Agua Caliente Indian Reservation is a federally recognized tribe of the Cahuilla, located in Riverside County, California. They inhabited the Coachella Valley desert and surrounding mountains between 5000 BCE and 500 CE. With the establishment of the reservations, the Cahuilla were officially divided into 10 sovereign nations, including the Agua Caliente Band.
The Riverside County Fair and National Date Festival takes place in Indio, California. Since 1947 the annual festival has been held to celebrate the Date Palm harvest in the Coachella Valley. The event is held in February on the Riverside County Fairgrounds.
Thermal is an unincorporated community within the Coachella Valley in Riverside County, California located approximately 25 miles (40 km) southeast of Palm Springs and about 9.5 miles (15.3 km) north of the Salton Sea. The community's elevation is 138 feet (42 m) below mean sea level. It is served by area codes 760 and 442 and is in ZIP Code 92274. The population was 2,865 at the 2010 census. For statistical purposes, the United States Census Bureau has defined Thermal a census-designated place (CDP), which does not precisely correspond to the historical community.
Palm Springs is a desert resort city in Riverside County, California, United States, within the Colorado Desert's Coachella Valley. The city covers approximately 94 square miles (240 km2), making it the largest city in Riverside County by land area. With multiple plots in checkerboard pattern, more than 10% of the city is part of the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians reservation land and is the administrative capital of the most populated reservation in California.
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Valerie Jean Dates is a historic date orchard and onetime popular U.S. Route 99 tourist stop located in Valerie, California, an unincorporated area a short distance south of Thermal.
A date shake is a milkshake made with dates. The drink originated in, and is particularly associated with, the Coachella Valley in California.
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B Bar H Ranch, California is an unincorporated area with cultural and historical features and is a residential community in Riverside County, California. B Bar H Ranch is located between Palm Springs and Desert Hot Springs in the Seven Palms Valley. California Home Town Locator states the B Bar H Ranch Latitude is 33.9102927 and Longitude is -116.4819566. The GNIS entry date is January 19, 1981. B Bar H Ranch sits at an elevation of 784 feet (239 m). B Bar H Ranch is approximately eight miles north of Palm Springs, California and approximately six miles south of Desert Hot Springs, California. B Bar H Ranch's approximate 240 acres are bordered by 18th Avenue to the north, Mountain View Road to the east, 20th Avenue to the south, and Bubbling Wells Road to the west. B Bar H Ranch consisted of approximately 899 residents as of the 2010 US Census.