The White sisters seemed destined to be Palm Springs pioneers, and Dr. Florilla Mansfield White and Miss Cornelia Butler White indeed left a lasting imprint upon the budding resort town. They were earthy nature-lovers whose idea of a good time meant exploring a nearby canyon—but they were astute businesswomen as well.
Dr. Florilla White, one of 10 children of a New York state farming family, was born in 1871. She first visited Palm Springs during the winter of 1912 and stayed at Welwood Murray’s original Palm Springs Hotel.
The adventurous Cornelia White, born in 1874, left the family farm in Utica, N.Y., when she was 18 to set out on her own. She first spent a year in Europe in 1894-1895, then returned to the United States and later joined a mining expedition in the Pacific Northwest. She also went above the Arctic Circle with a brother. There, the pair met up with polar explorer Vilhjalmur Stefansson, someone they’d met before. Stefansson was a Canadian explorer who had spent time living among the Inuit tribe.
Miss Cornelia, as she was known, also sailed up the Nile River in Egypt before she settled down at the University of North Dakota. There, she taught practical domestic-science courses like plumbing and carpentry—highly unusual for a woman circa 1911.
Meanwhile, a U.S. senator from North Dakota had subdivided some Mexican land in the West Coast state of Sinaloa and set out to colonize it in 1912. The timing was unfortunate, as the Mexican Revolution was raging—but Cornelia and Florilla White were restless adventurers in a static setting, so they jumped at the opportunity to head off to Mexico.
In Mexico, Cornelia renewed a friendship with fellow settler Carl Lykken, an engineering graduate from the University of North Dakota. The White sisters became farmers, raising bananas and papayas.
While they enjoyed the warmth of Mexico, many colonists were forced to flee in 1913 as rebels neared their location. Due to the tense situation, U.S. President Woodrow Wilson had ordered all American citizens home.
According to Mary Jo Churchwell, in her book Palm Springs: The Landscape, the History, the Lore, a small band of six refugees—Lykken, Cornelia, Florilla and three others—escaped by securing a hand car and taking turns pumping over rails where some of the ties had burned away. They then took a ship from Mazatlán to San Diego, and Lykken went on to Los Angeles.
Due to Florilla’s visit to Palm Springs the previous year, she suggested to her sister that they would much prefer the adventures that might await in the desert versus remaining in the big city. The two of them arrived in Palm Springs in 1913; they contacted Lykken and suggested he might like Palm Springs, too—and they all became early and notable settlers in the village.
The Palm Springs Hotel
There were but 15 buildings in the entire village when the sisters arrived. Among them was the original Palm Springs Hotel, whose owner, Welwood Murray, was more than happy to sell. They purchased it and continued to rent out rooms, sans meals, with much of their business handling overflow from The Desert Inn, owned by Nellie Coffman.
When Murray died in 1914, the sisters also bought the block across Tahquitz Canyon Way for $10,000. It was the entire 100 North Palm Canyon block, extending to Indian Canyon Drive, minus the northeast corner, which Welwood Murray had given to the Community Church.
Miss Cornelia also bought the entire block on which she lived (to the south of the present Tahquitz Canyon Way) for $5,000. The house Cornelia White lived in was the one built by Dr. Murray in 1893 from railroad ties taken from the erstwhile Palmdale Railroad.
That house was moved when Cornelia sold the property in 1944 to the southeast corner of Indian Canyon Drive and Tahquitz Canyon Way, where it became part of the original Palm Springs Desert Museum. Then in 1979, it was moved again, to the Village Green on South Palm Canyon Drive, where it sits today.
Dr. Florilla White, a medical doctor, was a dedicated horsewoman and a member of the Desert Riders; she often spent days in the mountains and canyons, exploring with Cahuilla tribal member Lee Arenas or his brother Simon. She served as the village health officer during World War I.
Dr. White founded “The Nightingales,” which began as a group of registered nurses she summoned from Riverside to come to Palm Springs to aid in the 1918 flu epidemic. Over the next several decades, the volunteer group got involved in a number of medical projects.
Neither sister wore skirts, even in that age of pompous petticoats and constricting whale-bone girdles. For 45 years, Cornelia was seen all over the area in riding pants, leather puttees, fringed safari jackets and sometimes a sturdy jungle pith helmet. She was a small woman with a big appetite for adventure. Her hair was usually pulled back into a bun and parted in the middle. Commenting on her everyday dress, writer Harry C. James noted about Miss Cornelia: “The common-sense attire of a very modest woman in refinement and culture proved that an active outdoor life in chaparral country can be the life for a lady.”
Their sister, Isabel White, joined them in Palm Springs in 1915. In contrast to her two down-to-earth, outdoors-loving sisters, she always maintained a more dignified East Coast demeanor. Isabel married the Englishman J. Smeaton Chase in 1917, two years after he also arrived in Palm Springs. Chase had authored numerous books, most notably California Coast Trails, California Desert Trails and Our Araby.
Chase died in 1923, and Isabel survived him by almost 40 years, living out her remaining years either in nearby Banning or at her home near the Tennis Club. They are buried side by side in the old pioneer Welwood Murray Cemetery (on Vine Avenue at the end of West Alejo Road).
In 1915, Cornelia White bought a piece of property covered with orange trees at the corner of what was then Lime and Main streets (now Baristo Road and Palm Canyon Drive) for $75. She sold it to the builder of the proposed Del Tahquitz Hotel in the mid-1930s for $7,000. Then a bank purchased the property years later for considerably more money.
Cornelia White hung on to the south end of the property originally purchased from Murray (south of Tahquitz Canyon Way) until it was developed into La Plaza in 1936—a property which still a focal point in Palm Springs.
Dr. Florilla White died in 1943, and Cornelia disposed of their remaining real estate holdings north of Tahquitz Canyon Way, except for her home—that original railroad-tie house built by Welwood Murray.
Miss Cornelia herself also built a small house. Lykken later remarked that Cornelia had put her considerable building skills to work when she constructed that stone house, as it was designed to be half-buried in the ground for coolness. That building later became the custodian’s house for the museum.
In April 1947, Cornelia deeded the property along Tahquitz Canyon Way between Palm Canyon Drive and Indian Canyon Drive to the Palm Springs Desert Museum. She requested no publicity and only retained a life tenancy on a portion of the property. The main-floor gallery of what is now the Palm Springs Art Museum is dedicated to Cornelia White for her contribution to the museum’s first original permanent location.
Miss Cornelia White was widely known for her love of adventure as well as her kindness and generosity. She died in September 1961 in Banning. She is buried in the Welwood Murray Cemetery alongside her two sisters.
Sources for this article include Palm Springs: The Landscape, the History, the Lore, by Mary Jo Churchwell (Ironwood Editions, 2001); Palm Springs: First 100 Years, by Mayor Frank Bogert (Palm Springs Heritage Associates, 1987); and Desert Dream Fulfilled: History of the Palm Springs Desert Museum, by Patricia Mastick Young (Palm Springs Desert Museum, 1983).
Photos of White sisters courtesy of Palm Springs Historical Society. Photo of Florilla White and Cornelia presentation from Palm Springs Desert Museum. Cornelia White house photo by Greg Niemann.