cover/ story
How The Palm Desert Golf Cart Parade Began
Among the Coachella Valley’s many iconic tradi-
tions,Palm Desert’s annual Golf Cart Parade ex-
udes an overwhelming sense of charm, nostalgia
and good ole family fun.
According to local lore —
and who does the telling of
it — the parade began in
the 1950s and was started
either by radio personali-
ties Phil Harris and his wife
Alice Faye or actors William
Powell, William Boyd and
Ginger Rogers.
After leaving behind their
acting careers and retiring
to the Coachella Valley, the
stars apparently wanted
to find a way to connect with their neighbors and
came up with the idea to “decorate golf carts
and parade around the streets of Palm Desert,”
according to one account published in The Desert
Sun in 1983.
By 1965,
the Palm
Desert
Cham-
ber of
Com-
merce
began
helping
orga-
nize the
event.
Believ-
In 1971, the golf cart parade was held in July
ing the
and was called the “Midsummer Madness
parade
Golf Cart parade.” (Photo: Newspapers.com)
could
be used as a way to “pep up summer life in the
desert,” the chamber held it in July with the goal
of turning it into a yearly happening.
At the time is was called “Christmas in July,” but as
the late ‘60s progressed it
took on other names such
as “Summer Madness,”
then “Mad Summer Days,”
followed by “Mid-Summer
Madness.”
It had many different
routes, but that never
deterred parade-goers who
didn’t seem to mind the
changing locations, as long
as they could watch the
decorated golf carts, bands
and other parade highlights pass by. Even those
in the crowd became somewhat of a spectacle, as
some attendees shocked their fellow parade-go-
ers by “showing up in the 110-degree heat in their
fur coats,” according to the 1983 story.
By 1973, organizers moved the parade to October
and again changed the name, this time to “Palm
Desert on Parade.”
By the mid-1970s, though, enthusiasm for it
dropped off and it wasn’t held again until the
early 1980s. By 1983, event organizers restarted
the parade, which has been held in the fall every
year since.
This year the 55th Annual Palm Desert Golf Cart
Parade and Festival takes place on Sunday, Oct.
27 at noon. Its theme will be “Let the Good Times
Roll,” and the parade Grand Marshal is Dodgers
great Steve Garvey.
APRIL 2020
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