“In 1924, an Iowa-born mining engineer named Floyd Shields met and married a schoolteachers named Bess in Los Angeles. Almost immediately the newlyweds packed up and moved to Indio.
The town was initially a railroad stop and water station for Southern Pacific trains traveling between L.A. and Yuma, Arizona. However, artesian springs found at the turn of the century in Thermal and Coachella resulted in a growing agricultural community. One of the new crops that had literally taken root was the date palm.
The Shields — with no farming experience between them — intended to become date ranchers. One wonders how they idealized their future at the time. Did they imagine lying in hammocks during the desert’s temperate months, watching the profits swaying above them amid the palm fronds?…”
