Coachella

Sister cities

• Mexicali

History

The city was founded as Woodspur in 1876, when the Southern Pacific Railroad built a rail siding on the site to allow the harvesting of mesquite lumber for use by the railroad and later for shipment to the Los Angeles market. Jason L. Rector, an employee of Southern Pacific, was the first recorded non-Native American resident of Woodspur. In the 1880s, in the decade after the federal government divided the land the indigenous Cahuilla tribe had historically occupied between the tribe and railroads on a checkerboard pattern, the tribe sold its land plots to the railroads for new lands east of the current town site. In the 1890s, a few hundred traqueros, including a number of immigrant Mexican railroad workers, settled along the tracks. Coachella was transformed from a territory gridded out on the mesquite-covered desert floor to a town in its own right after Rector and his brother dug the first artesian well in 1900, providing fresh water to support incoming settlers and irrigation for agriculture. In 1901, the citizens of Woodspur voted on a new name for their community at a town hall meeting, settling on "Coachella". The name does not mean anything in Spanish or any of the indigenous languages of the region. After their first test well proved successful the Rector brothers cleared 25 acres, which they planted in barley, wheat, cantaloupes, watermelons and sugar beets, later that year. As the Los Angeles Times reported at the time, "the land proved wonderfully fertile, and all of the crops did well, coming to maturity in a phenomenally short time." The Coachella Valley was especially attractive because it was able to produce crops earlier than other regions in the Southwestern United States. By 1902 over 100 artesian wells had been drilled in the Valley as…

Geography

According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of , all of it land.

Race & ethnicity

Most-observed species

• Mourning Dove

  Zenaida macroura (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  4,176
• Costa's Hummingbird

  Calypte costae (Bourcier, 1839) · Aves
  4,134
• House Finch

  Haemorhous mexicanus (P.L.Statius Müller, 1776) · Aves
  4,094
• Northern Mockingbird

  Mimus polyglottos (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  4,089
• Common Raven

  Corvus corax Linnaeus, 1758 · Aves
  3,920
• Verdin

  Auriparus flaviceps (Sundevall, 1850) · Aves
  3,758
• Black Phoebe

  Sayornis nigricans (Swainson, 1827) · Aves
  3,429
• Yellow-rumped Warbler

  Setophaga coronata (Linnaeus, 1766) · Aves
  2,871

Largest nearby schools

• Coachella Valley High
  High · Thermal · 2,657 students · 21.1:1 ratio
• La Quinta High
  High · La Quinta · 2,500 students · 24.8:1 ratio
• Indio High
  High · Indio · 2,143 students · 25.5:1 ratio
• Desert Mirage High
  High · Thermal · 2,018 students · 21:1 ratio
• Shadow Hills High
  High · Indio · 1,751 students · 22.7:1 ratio
• Imagine Schools Riverside County
  Elementary · Coachella · 1,312 students · 23.9:1 ratio
• John Glenn Middle School of International Studies
  Middle · Indio · 1,045 students · 23.8:1 ratio
• Desert Ridge Academy
  Middle · Indio · 1,030 students · 25.8:1 ratio