One of the earliest photographers and authors in the area was Joseph Smeaton Chase. Because of his work and travels in the early part of the last century, readers can look back in time to the California deserts and see them through his eyes.

In his book "California Desert Trails" published by Houghton Mifflin Co. in 1919, Chase documents his travels in chapters such as "A Desert Ride: Palm Springs to Seven Palms" or "Thousand Palm Canon to Coachella Valley" with humor and detail that can still interest readers.

His books are considered classics by some, although they are not held in quite as high regard as those by John Muir or other nature writers.

Chase was described as energetic and "a middle-aged man of excellent posture" by desert author Edmund C. Jaeger in an article in the Palm Springs Villager dated March 1952.

"He wore riding breeches and leather puttees, a brown tweed coat and broad brimmed Stetson hat," wrote Jaeger, who adds, "I found him to be a thorough son of the open, a delightful conversationalist, full of good humor and the best sort of subtle English wit."

Chase would pack his horse Kaweah and set off for weeks and months at a time photographing the panoramas he viewed, documenting the flora and fauna he found and life in the desert for his book.

According to a typewritten biography in the Palm Springs library files, J. Smeaton Chase, as he was known, was born in London on April 8, 1865. At 25 he moved to the United States and settled in California.

Upon his arrival Chase deposited the inheritance he had received from his father, publisher Samuel Chase, into a bank which promptly failed within a few weeks of his arrival. Without funds he began to live frugally in the mountains around San Diego for the next few years.

In an article by Lawrence Clark Powell, also found in the library files, it notes that Chase was also a social welfare worker for many years at the Bethlehem Institutional Church in Los Angeles. Chase was also listed in Los Angeles directories beginning in 1893.

Chase's first book, "Yosemite Trails," was published in 1911, the same year his book "Cone-Bearing Trees of the California Mountains," was published with photographs by Chase and line drawings by noted desert artist Carl Eytel, who had come to the California desert in the fall of 1898. Chase's next volume, "California Coast Trails," was published in 1913.

His first visit to Palm Springs was around 1912 when he came to experience the healing powers of the local hot springs. Chase moved to the area in 1915.

He married Isabel White in 1917. Isabel's sisters Florilla and Cornelia had purchased Dr. Welwood Murray's hotel after Murray's death in 1914.

Chase's desert trails book is filled with his observations, such as that of a cloudburst that overtook him one afternoon.

"A storm was certainly coming, one of those sudden violent bursts that fall on this region at long intervals in summer, brewed almost in an hour in the furnace of the desert sky," he wrote. "A hundred yards in front of me was a palm that had lately been struck by lightning, and was now a ghastly, headless stick, like a skeleton finger pointing at its murderer the sky."

One more book written by Chase can still be found around the village. "Our Araby: Palm Springs and the Garden of the Sun," published in 1920 was reprinted by the Palm Springs Library in December 1987. Copies can be found in bookstores and at the historical society.

After several years of poor health Chase died in Banning in 1923. His widow continued to live in their house on Tahquitz Drive. She survived him by 40 years.

Chase's request to have his name engraved on the gravestone of his father and mother in Bexley Churchyard in Kent, England, was honored but he is buried with Isabel in a graveyard at the foot of Mt. San Jacinto.

Reach Shannon Starr at (909) 368-9567 or sstarr@pe.com