The Wide-Open Spaces became a virtue.
Along with the deluge of overtures to visit and relocate to “sunny Southern California” since the 1920s – those same invitations applied to the outlying regions; not just Los Angeles or Hollywood or even Santa Barbara and San Diego – it applied to those vast stretches of Desert that lay between Los Angeles and Nevada – the dry and scorchingly hot areas that seemed as far away from city living as it would if you were urged to pull up stakes and settle on Mars. But here was all this land and here were all these people, sandwiched into apartment blocks and packed into housing projects in Cities east of the Mississippi – urban centers known to freeze solid during the winter months and to become steamy jungles during the summer. Anyone with the least bit of entrepreneurial spirit could see the possibilities and would tout it as the perfect answer to city drudgery. And so a major campaign began to coax those millions of miserable urbanites to come west – to the balmy climes of the Southern California desert – where it was a dry heat and where it was sunny all year long and where it could be a vacationers paradise. So buying land in the desert was the next big thing. Rather than market the deserts of Palm Springs and points east to the California border as place to start a new life, it was touted as a place to vacation – a second home – a place to retire and spend golden years lounging and soaking up liberal doses of Vitamin D and cultivating a healthy glow as the result.
First ones to flock were the celebrities – and they flocked to Palm Springs. And with them came testimonials that Desert Air was the healthiest – sprawling estates began to dot the desert landscape. The trek west slowed down only slightly during the war and was relegated to those areas where defense plants could operate 24 hours a day and there was enough land for training and testing all the new weaponry needed to meet the demand.
Places like Palm Springs became meccas to recuperate from the stresses and wounds of war – and no doubt V-mails were filled with wide-eyed proclamations over what a paradise the Desert was and how everyone was tanned and healthy. It sowed more than a few seeds to the folks back home.
After the war, with housing shortages and unemployment, the lure of moving west looked more like reality than fantasy.
And there was still a lot of land to be had and the campaign was on to take advantage of the urge to move West and sell acreage and offers to build dream houses. The campaign took on all forms; Magazines, newspapers, full spreads in the Weekend sections with stories promising paradise in just about every city newspaper in the country. Radio was joining in, and programs like this one: The Man From Twentynine Palms became daily love letters to the joys of desert living.
Twentynine Palms, just one of the many desert communities springing up all over Southern California, didn’t have the star-power places like Palm Springs did – but the message was the same: come to Paradise and stay for the miracles. The same message echoed to Desert Hot Springs, Two-Bunch Palms, Joshua Tree, Indio and a million other places in between.
I am not clear on just how popular this particular radio show was or how long it ran – over time, the invitations became more extravagant – free trips to these desert communities with free meals and relentless arm-twisting. Promises of communities to be built – golf tournaments to be run – a guarantee of fun and paradise for all.
So, to get an idea of how popular the lure of Desert living was in the 1940s, here is Episode 10 of The Man From Twentynine Palms.
