General-store owner Carl Gustav Lykken is credited with helping his adopted town of Palm Springs in many ways—but he is perhaps best known as the man who installed the village’s first telephone.
Born in Grand Forks, N.D., in 1884, Lykken (pronounced Licken) earned a mining-engineering degree from the University of North Dakota, and in 1912, he was hired to subdivide lots for a new American colony in Sinaloa, Mexico. The timing, however, was anything but providential, as the Mexican Revolution (1910-1920) ended a lot of plans.
Most of the settlers were also from North Dakota, including the White sisters, Florilla and Cornelia. With them and three others, Lykken escaped from Mexico. They appropriated a hand cart and took turns pumping as it moved over rails that had some of the ties already burning away.
Lykken followed the suggestion of the White sisters and joined them in Palm Springs. He bought David Blanchard’s general store shortly after arriving in 1913 and originally partnered with J.H. Bartlett. Together, they moved the entire operation across the street, now Palm Canyon Drive.
The partners originally called their store Lykken and Bartlett, but it became known as the Palm Springs Department and Hardware Store. The store initially stocked groceries for local hotels and homeowners; Lykken later began to include hardware, housewares and clothing.
Lykken eventually took over the store by himself and even added ice to his inventory—although after purchasing 300-pound blocks in Colton, they would usually shrink to 100-pound blocks for his customers after travelling by rail and wagon across the desert.
In the early years, Palm Springs had spotty contact with those outside of the desert. Carl Lykken was the one who helped change that. His store provided the town with its initial post office and its only telegraph service. Lykken himself served as postmaster, and for years was the agent for Western Union. He had a dry-battery connection to the telegraph at the Southern Pacific Railroad agent’s office in Garnet, thus establishing the village’s only contact with the outside world.
To improve communications, in 1915, Lykken acquired and maintained the village’s first telephone. An extension of it went to the Desert Inn. He would answer the telephone on behalf of the entire community. He either delivered messages or posted them on the wall for locals to collect when they came to shop or pick up their mail. He later donated the phone to the Palm Springs Historical Society, where it remains on display today in the Cornelia White House downtown at the Village Green.
Lykken married Edith Coombs in 1917, and Edith oversaw the clothing department—because she felt her husband lacked a keen sense of color that was necessary to stock ladies’ clothing.
Carl and Edith Lykken and their daughter, Jane (Hoff), originally lived in a little two-story house rented from Cornelia White, just south of the store on Palm Canyon Drive. It had some pepper trees and a shady front porch. A fence separated the yard from Palm Canyon Drive, and Jane later mused that the fence was to keep her in, as well as to keep the horses and donkeys, wandering around town, out. She mentioned that her earliest memories included the thrill of seeing those horses and donkeys running through town. In Frank Bogert’s book View From the Saddle, Jane is quoted: “I remember one of my chores was to take a little pail over to our neighbor Florilla White. They kept cows in the back yard. I had to milk the cows and bring home a pail of fresh milk.”
About the store, years later, Jane recalled: “It was the primary gathering place for Palm Springs’ early residents. If you couldn’t get it at Lykken’s, you didn’t get it here.”
In 1929, the Lykken family hired local builder Alvah Hicks to construct the town’s first home with central heating—a solid two-story home still prominent in the Las Palmas area.
Lykken continued to serve the community in many ways for almost 60 years. A founding member of the Palm Springs Library Board, the Palm Springs Community Church, the Desert Museum and the Palm Springs Rotary, he was a charter member of the Polo Club and the Desert Riders. He founded the Palm Springs police and fire protection districts and served as president of the Chamber of Commerce and the local Community Chest. He was also a member of the Palm Springs Historical Society’s board of directors.
In the 1940s, Lykken sold the business at 180 N. Palm Canyon Drive to Tom Holland, who continued to run the Palm Springs Department and Hardware Store; it continued operating under several different owners until 1979. Richard and Mary Beth Marek, who owned The Alley, then leased the location in 1979 before moving farther south on Palm Canyon Drive. The building with the familiar arches in front of the entrance still graces Palm Canyon Drive and has been the home of various businesses through the years, and is now home to a shoe store.
Near the end of a lifetime of dedicated civil service, a Carl Lykken Day was celebrated in 1970. More than 150 well-wishers gathered at the Oasis Hotel to honor the pioneer citizen. In 1971, Lykken donated $10,000 for the construction of a new library, and a wing is named in his honor.
Carl Lykken died on Jan. 12, 1972, at the age of 87. Lykken loved to hike and explore the desert, so in his honor, on June 26, 1972, the old Skyline Trail behind the Desert Museum (now the Palm Springs Art Museum) was renamed the Lykken Trail. In May 1980, an expanded Lykken Trail opened following a dedication at the Desert Museum.
Carl’s wife, Edith, died in 1974. Jane Lykken Hoff became a village leader like her father. By 1972, she was “round-up boss” of the prestigious local riding group, the Desert Riders, and went on to become its president. Jane also belonged to Los Compadres and was its first woman president.
Jane served on numerous civic boards and committees, including the Palm Springs Historical Society’s board of directors. When I was introduced to her in March 2003, former Mayor Frank Bogert recognized Jane, then 83, as the surviving pioneer who had been in town the longest.
She extended that claim by more than two decades before passing away on Dec. 29, 2023—less than two months before what would have been her 104th birthday.
Sources for this article include View From the Saddle by Frank Bogert (ETC Publications, 2006); The Desert Sun (articles from Feb. 26, 2023, and Dec. 31, 2023, by Tracy Conrad); Palm Springs: The Landscape, The History, The Lore by Mary Jo Churchwell (Ironwood Editions, 2001); and Nellie’s Boardinghouse by Marjorie Belle Bright (ETC Publications, 1981).
