1930s Household Products Show Up in Palm Springs

Remember Rinso soap, Mazda light bulbs and Uneeda biscuits? Hundreds of household products from bygone times are still on the shelves of a store here.

None is for sale, but the small admission fee to Ruddy’s General Store Museum buys a nostalgic return to the 1930s. More than 6,000 items that were in demand half a century ago are still in stock at the re-created store.

It’s one of a trio of buildings that bring the past to life at the Village Green Heritage Center in the heart of this resort town. Near the Desert Fashion Plaza, amid art galleries and boutiques, you’ll find a quiet courtyard with a collection of Palm Springs memorabilia.

Bordering a grassy square along Palm Canyon Drive is the city’s oldest building, an adobe built in 1884 by “Judge” John McCallum. He was a San Francisco attorney who became the area’s first permanent non-Indian settler. His home is a museum and headquarters of the Palm Springs Historical Society.

Next door you can visit a cottage built of railroad ties that was erected in 1893 as part of Palm Springs’ first hotel. It later became the home of another pioneer, Cornelia White.

The third building isn’t old, but its vintage contents make Ruddy’s General Store a delightful new addition to the Village Green Heritage Center. Everything inside is authentic: products, advertisement signs, showcases and fixtures.

Sixty percent of the collection came from a single store in Illinois that was being liquidated during the Great Depression. The liquidator decided to keep the store’s contents, and five years ago Jim Ruddy acquired that entire 1930s treasure.

A rare-coin collector by profession, Ruddy also had been gathering old-time tobacco and drug items for more than two decades. He first displayed his combined collection in a Palm Desert storefront, then moved it to the mock general store that he built last year at the Village Green.

Nearly 95% of the packages and bottles still hold their original ingredients. Grain cabinets, a cast-iron stove and a checkerboard on an old barrel add to the yesteryear atmosphere. Music and radio commercials of the 1930s play in the background. A brass cash register has a tally limit of $3.

Ruddy’s General Store Museum is open Thursday through Sunday (weekends only, in summer). Hours are 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Admission is 50 cents. No charge for children 12 and under. For more information, call (619) 327-2156.

Many mementos from Palm Springs’ past are displayed in the Cornelia White House. It was part of the Palm Springs Hotel property that Cornelia bought in 1913. Wood for the building came from the track bed of a spur railroad that real estate speculators ran to town from the Southern Pacific route.

Throughout the house are some of White’s belongings, along with furnishings from other Palm Springs pioneer families. Look for Cornelia’s fancy slippers, her hand-carved rosewood bed and a mantle clock with wooden works. On the wall is the town’s first telephone, complete with hand crank.

Other Palm Springs relics are in the adjacent McCallum Adobe. Among them is a display of sun-tinted lavender glass, high-collar dresses and other turn-of-the-century fashions, along with an exhibit of antique dolls.

Early pictures of Agua Caliente Indians, pioneer families of Palm Springs and Hollywood celebrities who came to the resort are shown from the historical society’s collection of 5,000 photographs. Paintings by local artists also are on display.

New exhibits feature the El Mirador Hotel when it was an Army hospital during World War II (today it’s the Desert Hospital) and famous Palm Springs nightclubs, including the Chi Chi and the Dollhouse.

The McCallum Adobe and Cornelia White House are open for the season beginning Friday. Visiting hours 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Thursday through Saturday, as well as noon to 3 p.m. Wednesday and Sunday (closed Monday and Tuesday and in summer).

Admission to each is 50 cents; children with an adult are free.

You may find the Village Green’s courtyard in disarray, because it is being revamped as part of the golden anniversary of the city’s 1938 incorporation. Later this month a time capsule will be buried there, with instructions to open it in another 50 years.

Under construction is a huge Mexican stone fountain that should be flowing by Thanksgiving. It’s surrounded by sidewalk bricks personalized with the names of donors who supported the golden anniversary celebrations.

The historical society’s annual Pioneer Picnic is set for Nov. 20 and will feature a singing cowboy and a storyteller relating anecdotes about early Palm Springs. Call (619) 323-8297 for more information.

To get to the Village Green Heritage Center from Los Angeles, drive east on Interstate 10 and exit on California 111 into Palm Springs. That highway becomes South Palm Canyon Drive. A block beyond a major cross street, Tahquitz-McCallum Way, look right for the historic homes and new fountain.

They’re in the middle of the block between Aristo and Baristo roads just across from the popular Mexican restaurant Las Casuelas Terraza. It’s open daily for lunch and dinner.

For a list of restaurants as well as lodgings, contact the Greater Palm Springs Convention and Visitors Bureau in Suite 315 of Airport Park Plaza, 255 N. El Cielo Road, phone (619) 327-8411.

Round trip from Los Angeles to Palm Springs is 220 miles.