Hot Date

It’s not what you think – trust me. I’m referring to a visit about a month ago with my father and his wife to Shields Date Garden in Indio. Whenever they visit, Shield’s is one of the places we have to stop so that Alberta can restock her date stores.

Since I’ve lived in the area for six years, and have had visitors a few times, I’m no stranger to Shields Date Gardens, but last month was the first time that I actually took the time to check out the film presentation about the Romance and Sex Life of the Date that’s touted on a billboard on Highway 111.  Back in the day, that sign was pretty racey.

 The film, like the entire Shields facility, is vintage 1950s. The show is travelogue meets fifth grade science film, narrated by a male who sounds as though he does voice-overs for newsreels. Awkward attempts have been made to make the presentation more modern (new photographs spliced in, as well as updated community information) but the best parts are the obviously original pieces of film.

Many of us in California are migrants of some variety, and Shields was not an exception.  He was born in Iowa and schooled in Montana to be a mining engineer. His wife, Bess, was from Kansas. They met and married here. Neither of them had any farming or ranching experience when they arrived in Indio, population 500.

The Coachella Valley is similar to the Red River valley where I grew up, in that it’s the bottom of what was an ancient lake. Plant something in the sediment, it can’t help but grow. When the Southern Pacific Railroad came through here in 1904, people started exploring the area and discovered deep Artisian wells. Especially in the areas around Indio and Coachella, a farmer could poke a hole in the ground and watch a water geyser spew forth.

As the interest in area agriculture grew, the University of California, Riverside got involved and started investigating the viability of growing dates here. They found that yes, dates could flourish in the area, and by the 1920s, date groves lined California State Highway 111 from Palm Springs all the way to Indio, a distance of about 20 miles.

To set himself apart from the competition, Floyd developed a lecture about the romance and sex life of the date. (We all know that sex sells.) The lecture became a slide show and then a movie. 

Floyd Shields

 The east valley was booming by the 1940s. The Salton Sea – a massive body of water formed when the engorged Colorado River broke levees and flowed for two years into the Salton Sink region – was enjoying great popularity as a resort destination. Date farming had taken off, as well as citrus farming and other table crops. Shields constructed his Date Gardens building in 1950, put up the knight in 1953, and has been here ever since.

A couple notes about date farming that I found fascinating: Dates, although supposedly the oldest known cultivated tree crop, are difficult to grow. The trees take 15 years to mature, and 20 years to yield any return. Pollination has to be done manually, which makes the whole romance and sex life thing a lot less titillating. Male flowers are cut from the trees, then bound to females. Workers have to climb the palms and visit the pairings every day, shake out pollen on them with a sort of powder puff. The branches are full of thorns which have to be removed. As the fruit starts to ripen, it has to be bagged and tied to protect it. The groves require 10 acre feet of water per year, which is equal to about 120 inches of rainfall. If it wasn’t for the American Canal that brings water from the Colorado, it would be impossible to grow this crop here. In August, the fruit has to have water proof covers placed over it (different than the bags), and finally ripens about September 1. From then until the end of the year, dates are picked manually about once a week; they don’t all ripen at the same time.

The only date groves left on Hwy 111 now are the Shields’ groves. There are still farms farther east in the valley, but just about the only things growing on the fertile alluvial fan now are golf courses and finely manicured lawns. Parking lots, streets, strip malls, country clubs and massive resorts line the valley from end to end.

In 1921, the first Date Festival was held in Indio to celebrate the harvest. The fair continued annually for a few years, but interest waned. Sixteen years later, in 1937, the festival returned and has been an annual event ever since. Next time: Goin’ to the Fair.