Finding your place in the sun in Palm Springs, California in 1958

When I stumbled across this image from 1958 on the Duke University website, I immediately recognized the location - driving towards Palm Springs from Los Angeles. The San Jacinto Mountains are on the right. I'm not sure what this highway was called back then, but to me it's the 10, which goes from Santa Monica to where I'm writing this right now, in Phoenix, and then on from there.

I've never stayed in Palm Springs (Indio is as close as I could afford for a motel room), but I've gone past it more times than I can count. I did exit the freeway once, just to look around, and I took the tram up to the top of the mountain, where I recall it was much cooler!


The mountains haven't changed since this photo was taken, and it looks like something else hasn't changed, the, uh, risque billboards. I definitely remember those! They usually showed beautiful girls in bikinis "working on their tans". This billboard from 1958 seems to imply that it could be done sans bathing suit!

By the way, that's the reason that this photo was taken - as a record of the billboard to give proof that it was up and visible. That's how billboard companies work. Your place in the sun!


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