Editing Cathedral City, California (section)

===Stage and freight lines 1860 – early 20th century===
Prior to the 1860s the only regularly traveled routes through the Coachella Valley were trading paths used by the Cahuilla and other Native American tribes. One of these paths, on the southwestern side of the valley, followed the base of the San Jacinto and Santa Rosa mountains somewhere near the [[Whitewater River (California)|Whitewater River]], and would have passed through the area that would become Cathedral City. Early non-native explorers, surveyors, and military, such as Colonel Washington, made use of these routes, but regular transportation services were not established until 1862.
  
The [[Steamboats of the Colorado River#Colorado River Gold Rush|Colorado River Gold Rush]], which started in the spring of 1862, prompted [[William D. Bradshaw]], a frontiersman, to seek a quicker route from Los Angeles to the [[Colorado River]]. Later that year he hired a guide, and with the help of the Cahuilla and [[Maricopa people|Maricopa Indians]], mapped a route from [[San Bernardino, California]], through the San Gorgonio Pass and Coachella Valley, past the northern shore of the [[Salton Sink]], through the passes between the [[Chuckwalla Mountains|Chuckwalla]] and [[Chocolate Mountains]], and up to the Colorado River across from La Paz in the [[New Mexico Territory]], (now the state of [[Arizona]]). Much of the route is thought to have followed the original southwestern trading path used by the Cahuilla.

Shortly after Bradshaw defined the trail from San Bernardino to La Paz, various stagecoach and freight companies began using the route. The stage and freight lines brought miners, supplies, and mail between San Bernardino and La Paz, and the route became known as the [[Bradshaw Trail]] or "Gold Road". The Bradshaw trail, like the original Cahuillian trail, passed through the future Cathedral City, but the nearest scheduled stops were Agua Caliente (now Palms Springs), and Indian Wells (now Indio). The stage and freight lines were eventually supplanted by the railroads, but the trail would later become the basis for Palm Canyon Drive and [[California State Route 111|Highway 111]] that run through the city today.