Our History

Part of the ancestral home of the Cahuilla Indians, the Southern California town now known as Idyllwild nests at 5,300 feet in the San Jacinto mountain range. Its remote location left the area relatively undisturbed by Spanish explorers. In the late 1800s, however, a few decades after California had been acquired by the United States, ranchers and timbermen began to gradually move into the area.

After the building of the Hemet Dam in 1895 providing a more reliable water supply in the mountain country, and with the increasing availability of transportation (the first public road to Idyllwild was completed in 1888), the area began to become known as a resort destination providing recreation, milder summers, and solitude. The name “Idyllwild” derives from George Hannahs’ Camp Idylwilde built in the 1890s, but within ten years, the name was also adopted as moniker for both the Idyllwild Sanatorium (1901) and the Idyllwild Inn (1905). The 1917 map of the United States Forest Service shows Idyllwild as a geographic place name. By the 1920s, lots were being sold for mountain homes, creating small neighborhoods among the dense pine forest.

Not until after World War II, with the founding of the Idyllwild School of Music (now the Idyllwild Arts Academy), did Idyllwild also become a cultural center. In 1959, a dignitary visiting from Cambodia called Idyllwild “Queen of the Hills” because of its natural beauty.  Even now, movers and shakers from Hollywood visit on occasion to make feature films. Today, festivals occur year round, to celebrate the mild summers and frequent snowy winters. With a de facto ban on “chain” stores and businesses, small inns and rental cabins predominate, with about a dozen restaurants, numerous quaint shops, and even a small original movie theater to serve the local resident and tourist population.