Renee Brown, director of education and associate curator for the Palm Springs Historical Society, took a look back at the origins of the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway in a recent Desert Sun article. Renee writes that the idea of building the Tramway began in 1932 with a casual remark made by Carl Barkow, then the publisher of The Desert Sun and the Banning Record, to Francis Crocker, manager of the Palm Springs office of California Electric Power Company, as they drove along Highway 111 on a hot summer day and looked at the still snow-capped peak of Mount San Jacinto. As the story is told, Barkow said, “Wouldn’t it be nice to be up there on the mountain right now?” and the rest is history.
Crocker, known as “Father of the Tram”, enlisted the aid of desert pioneer and co-manager of The Desert Inn, O. Earl Coffman, and Crocker’s dream became a plan. Crocker and other Palm Springs community leaders persevered for over 30 years facing many obstacles, but finally the first tramcar made its way from the desert floor to the top of Mt. San Jacinto on September 12, 1963.
Construction of the Tramway was an engineering challenge that required ingenious use of helicopters, flying over 23,000 missions during the 26 months of construction, to erect four of the tramway’s five supporting towers and the Mountain Station at the top of the Tramway. Twenty years after it was completed, the Tramway was designated as a historical civil engineering landmark.
In 1998, the Tramway began an ambitous modernization program that resulted in the construction and installation of new cars and an update of the facilities. In September 2000, passengers first rode the world’s largest rotating tramcars. Since 1963, nearly 18 million people have traveled the 10-minute, 2.5-mile ride, which begins at the Valley Station (elevation 2,643 feet) and ends at the Mountain Station (elevation 8,516 feet).
To read Renee Brown’s original article, courtesy of The Desert Sun, please visit: http://www.desertsun.com/story/news/2016/08/20/francis-crocker-palm-springs-aerial-tramway/89037162/ and for more information about the Tramway, please visit: http://www.pstramway.com