About Desert Hot Springs

Desert Hot Springs, also known as DHS, is a city in Riverside County, California, United States. The city is located within the Coachella Valley geographic region, sometimes referred to as the Desert Empire. The population was 25,938 at the 2010 census, up from 16,582 at the 2000 United States Census. The city has undergone rapid development and high population growth since the 1970s, when there were 2,700 residents.

According to founder of the city and writer Cabot Yerxa in his newspaper columns published in The Desert Sentinel newspaper, the first homesteader in the area of the city of Desert Hot Springs was Hilda Maude Gray, who staked her claim in 1908. In 1913 Cabot Yerxa arrived and soon discovered hot water on Miracle Hill. Due to the San Andreas Fault bisecting the area, one side has cold water, the other has hot. His large Pueblo Revival Style architecture structure, hand built over 20 years, is now one of the oldest adobe-style buildings in Riverside County, and houses Cabot's Pueblo Museum, designated a state historical site after his death in 1965. Cabot's Trading Post & Gallery opened in February 2008.

The town was founded by L. W. Coffee on July 12, 1941. The original town site was centered at the intersection of Palm Drive and Pierson Boulevard and was only one square mile. Coffee chose the name Desert Hot Springs because of the area's natural hot springs.

Desert Hot Springs became a tourist destination in the 1950s because of its small spa hotels and boutique hotels. The city is popular with "snowbirds."

Desert Hot Springs has a desert climate (Köppen climate classification BWh) similar to the rest of the Coachella Valley, with under six inches of precipitation per year. Summers are very hot with days frequently exceeding 107 °F (42 °C) in July and August while night-time lows tend to stay between 78–90 °F (26–32 °C). The winters are mild with days typically seeing temperatures between 68–82 °F (20–28 °C) and corresponding night-time lows between 50–65 °F (10–18 °C). Heat waves during the summer months involving temperatures going over 110 °F (43 °C) are not unusual.