The land called Oasis of Mara, where the present day 29 Palms Inn resides, was original acquired by the Southern Pacific Railroad by Congress as a reward for bringing civilization to the wild west during the late 1800s.
The hotel wasn’t actually built until the mid 1920s when WP Roberts purchased the Oasis of Mara from the Southern Pacific Railroad. Roberts and his partners originals built the hotel to accommodate miners and cattleman passing though the desert. In 1929 the hotel was purchased by Harry Johansing from Pasadena. In 1950, the Johansing Family donated 58 acres from the east end of Oasis of Mara to the National Park Service to build a visitor center and headquarters for the Joshua Tree National Monument, which officially became a National Park in 1994.
During its history, the hotel as been relocated to the west end of the Oasis of Mara; changed names from the original “The Grand Hotel” to the 29 Palms Hotel to the now 29 Palms Inn; and part of the 29 Palms Inn was lost to a fire in October 1965. Locals and tourists frequent the 29 Palms Inn Restaurant these days, which is well known for their excellent food with fresh produce coming from its own professionally tended garden.
And I am most honored to have my fine art landscape artwork (which was just installed this past Sunday) featured along one of the walls in the restaurant until the end of September. I have to admit that I was scrambling a little to put this show together as one of my larger pieces had recently sold while on display at the High Desert Medical Center in Joshua Tree. So to fill the space on the wall at the 29 Palms Inn, I pulled several pieces off the wall from another local business I had recently installed artwork on. More about that new adventure in my next blog post.
[full_width_color bg_color=”#0697cc” color=”#ffffff”]xoxo, Patricia[/full_width_color]