CV History: Scotsman Welwood Murray Opened Palm Springs’ First Hotel

Thanks to the 1887 land promotions offered by John G. McCallum, people started arriving in Palm Valley—Palm Springs’ original name—to look at lots, but no lodging was available for them. Accommodations were needed, and McCallum prevailed upon Dr. Welwood Murray, his Scottish friend who lived near Banning, to establish some type of inn.

Welwood Murray did not graduate from medical school; his title was bestowed upon him for the outstanding medical service he rendered to the wounded on a war vessel during the U.S. Civil War. Murray was a lanky Scotsman, born on Sept. 17, 1832, who came to the United States from Edinburgh when he was 26 years old. After the war, he was employed as a copyreader for a publishing firm in New York City. He moved to the Banning area in 1876 because of failing health; he became the manager of the San Bernardino Fluming Company, a corporation formed to cut and transport lumber, fuel and ties for the Southern Pacific Railroad.

He bought 80 acres near Banning, built a two-story house in a canyon, and began ranching and establishing an orchard with his wife. He also became manager of the local orchards owned by a San Jose company, and supervised the growing and canning.

Murray and McCallum, who was the Indian agent based in Banning, enjoyed an intellectual friendship, as they were the only two in the area with similar education and literary interests. Even so, they were dissimilar in personality and disposition, and often disagreed on numerous subjects. But when shown the possibilities of the new Palm Valley village by his friend, the normally cautious Murray “went for it,” and in 1886, he bought a five-acre plot just across the way from McCallum’s original adobe.

Murray, with his health improved, soon became one of the founding fathers of Palm Springs. Hiring local Indigenous people, he constructed and opened the Palm Springs Hotel in time for the great land auction of Nov. 1, 1887. He built his hotel across the street from and southwest of the hot springs, which he then leased from the local Native Americans for $100 a year. An old bathhouse and dressing room were erected just over the springs and remained standing until 1916, when the tribe replaced it with their own structure. (The Spa Hotel later stood on the site of the springs, and in 2023, the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians opened the Séc-he Spa and Agua Caliente Museum on the historic site.)

The Palm Springs Hotel was a rambling, one-floor ranch-style structure of Murray’s own design, capable of accommodating 26 guests. It occupied the entire block of what is now Tahquitz Canyon Way between Main Street (now Palm Canyon Drive) and Indian Canyon Drive. For the auction, Murray hired local Native American Willie Marcus, dressed him in flowing Arabian attire, placed him on a camel, and sent him out to Seven Palms to meet the trains and pass out literature. The Murrays had buckboards pick people up at the train station and also organized forays and picnics into the nearby canyons.

Murray left most of the hotel-managing to his wife, Elizabeth Erskine-Murray, also a native of Scotland. She had been a teacher at the Indian School on the Potrero Reservation before she and her husband relocated to Palm Springs. A stout woman, she became known for entertaining guests, her great home-cooked meals, her nursing abilities, and the pleasant accommodations she offered.

Welwood Murray was more interested in horticulture and planted 22 varieties of fruit trees on the adjoining acreage, as well as all sorts of plants and shrubs. He quickly became an expert in the field and one of the leading horticulturists in California. In the book Palm Springs: The Landscape, the History, the Lore, author Mary Jo Churchwell revealed much about Welwood Murray when she wrote, “Murray was mad about trees. He loved them. He understood them. He cared for them as if they were his—I’m tempted to say children.”

Many notables were drawn to the new colony at Palm Valley, and they all stayed at Dr. Murray’s Palm Springs Hotel. In 1905, the naturalist John Muir arrived with his two daughters, Wanda and Helen—the latter ill and in need of a hot, dry climate. U.S. Vice President Charles Fairbanks came, as did Mrs. Fanny Stevenson, the widow of Robert Louis Stevenson (who had fought a tuberculosis condition most of his life and died before Palm Springs became known for its healing properties).

Welwood Murray became the first trustee of the Desert School District in 1893. Often called the “patriarch” of Palm Springs, he was considered by some to be the village’s greatest benefactor. He was well-read, garrulous, opinionated and passionate. The lanky man with his Scottish tam and thick brogue could, and did, expound upon most any topic—from evolution, to the Bible, to Shakespeare, to the politics of foreign countries—sometimes to the chagrin of his boarders and charges. He loved to use pompous English. As an example, when John Muir paid a surprise visit, and Murray was forced to clean up the place mid-summer, according to guest Helen Lukens Gaut, he ordered his Indigenous employees to “exterminate the superfluous accumulation of dirt.”

In 1893, when the village was ravaged by flooding and then followed by an 11-year drought, many of the settlers were forced to flee, leaving just a handful of people, including the visionaries McCallum and Murray. Murray lost so many trees during the devastating drought that he became disillusioned and tried to sell the Palm Springs Hotel. He had earlier angered the local Agua Caliente when, to save his trees, he desperately diverted the remaining flume water. The hotel closed forever in 1909; it was finally torn down in 1954.

Murray was a friend of Indian Chief Francisco Patencio and generally worked for the betterment of the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians. While he was involved in water disputes with them, especially during the drought years, he continued to exhibit an interest in their welfare.

When the Murrays’ son Erskine (born in 1867) died in 1894, rather than take him to Banning, they buried him on a triangular lot on Vine Avenue (at the west ends of Chino Drive and Alejo Road). As the Native Americans used the Patencio cemetery on Section 14, the Murrays allowed a few other burials on Vine Avenue. When Mrs. Murray died, she was buried there, and when Welwood Murray himself died in 1914, he was also buried in the cemetery that would be named after him.

The Murray heirs deeded the cemetery to the public, leading to the formation of the Palm Springs Cemetery District. Today, looking at the names on the tombstones is like revisiting the past of Palm Springs, as many of the town’s early settlers and notable citizens lie in repose there, including the White sisters, J. Smeaton Chase, Alvah Hicks, Nellie Coffman, Ruth Hardy, Zaddie Bunker, Albert Frey and many others.

Concerned with the lack of reading materials in the village, Murray made several attempts to help people borrow books. He even built a small adobe building at the rear of the hotel for a library, where he loaned out his own books. So it was fitting that in 1938, his son George Welwood Murray donated land in the heart of Palm Springs to the city for the construction of a library. The Welwood Murray Memorial Library (which opened in 1941) still graces the southeast corner of Palm Canyon Drive and Tahquitz Canyon Way. It was the main library of Palm Springs until 1975.

In addition to the cemetery and library, Murray Canyon is also named in honor of that garrulous Scotsman, Welwood Murray.

Sources for this article include Palm Springs: The Landscape, the History, the Lore by Mary Jo Churchwell (Ironwood Editions, 2001); and The McCallum Saga: The Story of the Founding of Palm Springs by Katherine Ainsworth (Palm Springs Desert Museum, 1973).