Supreme Court, would win the legal rights to have allotments approved. However, it would be another 50 years before the Agua Caliente, taking their case to the U.S. Congress passed the Mission Indian Relief Act in 1891, authorizing the Secretary of the Interior to make individual allotments from reservation lands. Palm Springs continued attracting more visitors and residents.

Welwood Murray, built the first hotel, The Palm Springs Hotel, in 1886. His work to bring water to the Coachella Valley foreshadowed the area’s current importance as a rich agricultural region. The first permanent non-Indian settler, McCallum purchased land from Southern Pacific and built an elaborate aqueduct. He sought a healthy environment for his tubercular son. In 1884, Judge John Guthrie McCallum of San Francisco arrived in Palm Springs with his family.

The even-numbered parcels of land were given to the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians, yet federal law prohibited them from leasing or selling the land to derive income from it. In 1877, as an incentive to complete a railroad to the Pacific Ocean, the United States government gave Southern Pacific Railroad title to the odd-numbered parcels of land for ten miles on either side of the tracks running through the Southern California desert around Palm Springs.

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