Our past two newsletters have offered a glimpse into the range of jobs Cabot Yerxa performed throughout his life. Once established in the desert, he could not spend all his time, as he wished, working on his homestead. Traveling to Los Angeles to make money, he labored on a pick-and-shovel team for a utility company, dug holes for telephone poles, …

In our last newsletter, we presented a “resume” that Cabot Yerxa prepared for a prospective employer. It is worth noting that he began learning about business firsthand as a young child. Below is an edited recounting of his background beginning when his father and two uncles owned grocery stores in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota. I worked in and out …

Cabot Yerxa’s fame and legacy derive from the 35-room, Indian-inspired structure he built in Desert Hot Springs (a destination on the Registry of National Historic Places). Supporters, friends, and fans of Cabot’s Indian Pueblo Museum — people like you who receive this newsletter — know more about his adventure and achievements. But, to use an apropos metaphor for the pioneer …

We’ve been giving this newsletter over to Cabot Yerxa through the journal he kept throughout his travels to and from Europe in 1925-26. This week, we get impressions of him and the desert not only through his words, but also through the eyes of a visiting writer named Belle Ewing. Below are excerpts from the aptly titled “Adventure’s Son,” published …