Coming 2023: Agua Caliente Cultural Plaza and the Oasis Trail

The Agua Caliente Cultural Plaza in downtown Palm Springs will be a cultural heritage destination where Tribal members and guests celebrate the history, culture, traditions, and modern life of the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians.

This 5.8-acre complex, opening in 2023, features the Agua Caliente Cultural Museum with an education garden and The Spa at Séc-he, a state-of-the-art spa fed by the ancient Agua Caliente Hot Mineral Spring. They are joined by the Gathering Plaza and Oasis Trail, which is activated with flowing water, Washingtonia filifera palm trees (the only palm tree native to the California desert), and stunning rock formations that capture the essence of the Indian Canyons and Tahquitz Canyon, the Agua Caliente people’s ancestral home.

While the Plaza connects ancient and contemporary life, the Oasis Trail reflects the sequestered nature of the canyons—water-filled areas that provided the ancestors of the Agua Caliente people with cooler living conditions in the hot desert summers. 

The Plaza will be a peaceful place to ponder and reflect on the place the Agua Caliente people call home.

The Cahuilla

The presence of the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians in the area now known as Palm Springs precedes any written calendar, record, or memory. The Tribe’s stories have been passed down for thousands of years, connecting the past and present. Their stories are told through bird songs, which narrate how the Agua Caliente people migrated throughout the region until landing at the place they call home.

The Agua Caliente Tribe is one of nine federally recognized Cahuilla tribes in Southern California. The original Cahuilla territory extends from the Borrego Desert in the south to the San Bernardino Mountains in the north and toward the Colorado River to the east and includes the city of Riverside to the west. The Agua Caliente Indian Reservation was established in 1876 and expanded in 1877. The Reservation includes land in what is now Palm Springs, Cathedral City, and Rancho Mirage.

Today, the Tribe has more than 500 members and is one of the largest employers in the Coachella Valley with its Tribal government, three casinos, a resort hotel and spa, and attractions such as the Indian Canyons, Tahquitz Canyon, Indian Canyons Golf Resort, and the new Agua Caliente Culture Plaza, which includes a cultural museum and The Spa at Séc-he. The Tribe is steward to more than 31,500 acres, which includes the world’s largest Washingtonia filifera palm oasis and thousands of acres of mountains, streams, and bighorn sheep habitat.

Agua Caliente Cultural Museum

The Agua Caliente Cultural Museum will be a cultural heritage attraction and an educational institution with a mission to share and celebrate the story of the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians. It will offer exhibits and educational programs covering a variety of topics ranging from Agua Caliente history and culture to contemporary land stewardship and conservation.

The 48,000-square-foot Museum features Agua Caliente art, artifacts, and media to animate specific pieces of the Tribe’s story. Galleries focus on the Creation and Migration stories, the Indian Canyons, Tahquitz Canyon, archaeology, and artistic expressions such as ollas and baskets.

Many artifacts, such as manos, metates, and projectile points, were recovered from the Plaza site during construction in 2018. Many of these items will be displayed to demonstrate the Tribe’s enduring habitation of the region. Some items' radiocarbon date as far back as 8,000+ years. 

The Spa at Séc-he

For the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians, no site is more significant than the Hot Mineral Spring on its ancestral land in what is now downtown Palm Springs. Its pure mineral water provided a place for ritual bathing, social activity, physical healing, and spiritual connection. They have called the spring Séc-he, the Cahuilla term for “the sound of boiling water,” since the beginning.

The Agua Caliente people have been sharing the healing water with visitors for more than 130 years, even before the turn of the 20th century, making it the area’s first tourist attraction. The Palm Springs village eventually grew up around it.

Bathing, or “taking the waters,” is an ancient tradition. The mineral-rich hot water eases muscle and joint aches and skin conditions as well as rejuvenates the spirit.

The Spa at Séc-he will offer 22 private mineral soaking tubs, two genuine Halo therapy salt caves, two zero-sensory flotation pods, grounded earthing anti-gravity chairs, cryotherapy, fitness center, saunas, steam rooms, hot tubs, and two outdoor pools, one of which is fed by the Agua Caliente Hot Mineral Spring.

The café at the Spa will offer fresh, health-conscious choices, including vegan and vegetarian options that highlight locally sourced ingredients. The cold-pressed juice bar will feature smoothies, juices, and spirulina blue-green algae “superfood” shots.

The Water

From the beginning of all that is, the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians has been faithful guardians of the naturally occurring Agua Caliente Hot Mineral Spring a mile and a half beneath the Earth’s surface that bubbles up in the heart of downtown Palm Springs. The hot water, known to the Tribe as Séc-he, has effervesced for centuries. Since then, the spring has been the soul of the Agua Caliente community, providing water for bathing, drinking, cooking, rejuvenation, and general sustenance.

• The spring water emerges at approximately 105 degrees, at an average of 24 gallons per minute, from its own pool located 8,000 feet below the surface, according to a U.S. Geological Survey study.
  
  
• In 1889, enterprising newcomers interested in the mineral-rich water’s restorative properties entered a three-year lease with the Tribe that resulted in a rustic bathhouse being built over the spring. By the time the original structure was replaced in the mid-1910s, the lease had expired, and stewardship returned to the Agua Caliente people. Due to popular demand for the resource, the Tribe rebuilt the bathhouse in the 1930s.
  
  
• In 1958, the third bathhouse was razed, and a new spa referenced as “The world’s most beautiful spa” opened to great acclaim in January 1960, followed a few years later by a 229-room Spa Hotel.
  
  
• In 1971, the Riverside County Historical Commission designated the Agua Caliente Hot Mineral Spring as a historical site.
  
  
• The Tribe broke ground in May 2018 on the Agua Caliente Cultural Plaza, which includes The Spa at Séc-he.