“Long before Palm Springs was incorporated as a city or even had its name, a natural hot mineral spring was effervescing from below its surface at about 105 degrees Fahrenheit. Located on Agua Caliente Indian Reservation land at what is now the downtown intersection of Tahquitz Canyon Way and Indian Canyon Drive, the spring provided sustenance and healing to the area’s first inhabitants, the ancestors of today’s Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians.
The Hot Mineral Spring, called Séc-he (“the sound of boiling water” in the Cahuilla language), was sacred to the ancient Agua Caliente people. It was the heart of tribal life: a place to gather, heal, and pray. Since time immemorial, the spring has remained central to the Agua Caliente, whose name aptly translates to “hot water” in Spanish, and they have remained its guardians to the present day…”
