Desert Water Walk Historical Reenactment

PALM SPRINGS, Calif. - Jan. 30, 2015 - PRLog -- The public is invited to join author and adventurer Dean M Gray on Desert Water Walk, an annual trek every February 1^st of every year to generate funding for historical research of our local desert.  This is no race but a leisurely walk with little change in elevation expected to take all day leaving at dawn.

Support for Desert Water Walk can be in the form of participation or sponsorship for http://www.desertwaterwalk.com

One hundred years ago the first pioneer homesteaders lived around the Two Bunch Palms oasis, their only source of water. Improvements to this water hole caused it to become fouled and toxic.

The pioneers then had to walk from their homesteads to the water tank at the Palm Springs train station and back to bring water they needed. The community then worked together to clean up their hole and dug wells to tap the aquifer below.

This 14 mile journey across the open desert was also once the only path from the train station to our desert community.  The trail of rattlesnakes, cactus and sand has not been travelled since the first roads were established in the 1920s.

Dean M Gray is the author of the yet to be published “Desert Homestead, the life and times of Hilda M Gray.”  This biography chronicles the life of Hilda M Gray,the first resident of Desert Hot Springs.  From her birth in Cambridge, England in 1872, her voyage to America at age 7, growing up on a Texas cattle ranch, Vanderbilt college education, her early teaching career in Galveston, legal secretary work in Chicago and Los Angeles, and finally…  her 1908 desert homestead in what was to become the city of Desert Hot Springs, California.

Desert Homestead is also available as a 40 minute presentation for community and educational groups.

Since 2012 this popular presentation accompanied by PowerPoint has entertained audiences with an appreciation for education and history.

For scheduling contact 760-318-5658 or netwrkng@yahoo.com