Rancho Mirage, California
Rancho Mirage is a city in Riverside County, California, United States. The city is a low-density desert-resort community with resorts, golf courses, and country clubs within the Colorado Desert section of the Sonoran Desert.[5][6] Nestled along the foothills of the Santa Rosa Mountains in the south, it is located several minutes east of Palm Springs. The city is adjacent to Cathedral City, Palm Desert, and unincorporated Thousand Palms.[7][8] The population was 16,999 at the 2020 census, down from 17,218 at the 2010 census, though the seasonal population can exceed 20,000. Incorporated in 1973, Rancho Mirage is one of the nine cities of the Coachella Valley.[9]
Rancho Mirage
United States
California
August 3, 1973[1]
Council–Manager
Steve Downs
Ted Weill
Lynn Mallotto
Meg Marker
Michael O'Keefe
Isaiah Hagerman
25.74 sq mi (66.67 km2)
25.35 sq mi (65.66 km2)
0.39 sq mi (1.01 km2) 1.57%
272 ft (83 m)
16,999
17,633
730.80/sq mi (282.17/km2)
Rancho Mirage is home to a number of celebrities past and present, including Don Sutton, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Bing Crosby, Sammy Davis Jr., Lucille Ball, Bob Hope, Billie Dove and Gerald and Betty Ford.[10][11] The city has been nicknamed "Playground of the Presidents"[12][13][14] and "Golf Capital of the World."[15] The city has hosted and currently hosts a variety of golf and tennis tournaments, including the Ryder Cup, Desert Classic (PGA Tour), Davis Cup, and the LPGA Tour (Chevron Championship).[16][17]
Sports[edit]
Tamarisk Country Club has hosted the Bob Hope Classic nineteen times. Thunderbird Country Club has hosted the Ryder Cup and the Desert Classic of the PGA Tour. It also held a PGA Tour event from 1952 to 1959 and was one of the original golf courses in the tournament that later became the Bob Hope Classic.[121] Mission Hills Country Club hosted the Davis Cup finals in 1978. The Chevron Championship was held at Mission Hills Country Club in 2022, one of five major championships in women's professional golf (LPGA).[122]
The Dinah Shore Golf Classic is held in Rancho Mirage every March and draws an estimated 15,000 lesbian visitors to the area.[123] It is part of the Kraft Nabisco Championship tournament which is held at the Mission Hills Country Club. In women's golf, the tournament ranks second only to the U.S. Women's Open.[13]
Rancho Mirage has 12[25] or 13 golf courses, also known as country clubs or golf resorts. The city's first resort was the Thunderbird Guest Ranch, opened in 1946 for entertainers and business clientele. Other golf resorts are The S at Rancho Mirage, Tamarisk, Mission Hills, Thunderbird, The Springs, Sunrise, Omni Resorts Rancho Las Palmas hotel (opened in 1979 to replace the Desert Air golf and private airport from 1954 to 1978), Morningside, Mission Hills North Course, Westin Hotels Mission Hills resort and Tuscania by Sunrise Company opened in 2006.
Education[edit]
There is one elementary school (Rancho Mirage Elementary) and one high school Rancho Mirage High School in the city limits which are part of the Palm Springs Unified School District, the newly renovated Nellie Coffman Middle School is on the city line with Cathedral City. There is one private school, Palm Valley School, which covers grades preschool-12th. The PSUSD is building a new grade-middle school complex on the lands of the former Walter Annenberg estate donated to the PSUSD. The complex has yet to be constructed. Rancho Mirage is also home to a campus of Santa Barbara Business College, a private college that offers academic degrees and career training.
In popular culture[edit]
At least two novels, Love Child by Andrew Neiderman (1986) and Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture by Douglas Coupland (1991), are set in Rancho Mirage. Both have references to the city and to Palm Springs, as well as the Mojave Desert. A third book, Rancho Mirage: an American Tragedy of Manners, Madness, and Murder by Aram Saroyan (2002), concerns a murder that occurred in the city.[171]
The Bob Cummings Show, a sitcom series starring Bob Cummings, was partially filmed at the Desert Air Hotel and Airpark (today known as Rancho Las Palmas Country Club). The airplane chartering scenes in the Oscar-winning film It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963) were also shot at the resort. Scenes in the movie also feature Bob Hope Drive and what later would become the Agua Caliente Casino Resort Spa.[172][173] A Warner Bros. film, Two Guys from Texas (1948), was filmed at Thunderbird Ranch in Rancho Mirage.[174] In 1926, filming took place in Rancho Mirage for the 1928 film The Vanishing Pioneer starring Jack Holt.[175]
The Tamarisk Country Club was featured in the sixth episode of the 2003 Bravo show Boy Meets Boy.[176] The 2003 ABC miniseries Trista & Ryan's Wedding was filmed at The Lodge at Rancho Mirage, now known as the Ritz-Carlton Rancho Mirage.[177]