Reporting by Tracy Conrad, The Desert Sun
One thousand hungry people generally attend. It’s quite a feat to serve and satisfy that many. The menu is simple and hasn’t changed for seven decades: barbecue roasted beef, beans, toasted bread, coleslaw, and cookies. It’s cowboy-fare, cooked over an open flame, by real cowboys.
Back when the “Los Compadres” tradition started, the few desert-dwellers in town were quite accustomed to entertaining themselves, making music, dancing, conversing, playing sports and cards. They cared deeply about their friends, amigos, buddies, pals or as they called them, compadres.
More remote than most places, the desert caused those few people here to cherish social gatherings and camaraderie as the most important part of life. And it was a rich life, even though the fun was free for anyone willing to participate.
The locals who serviced the tourist trade, by necessity, made their own fun. In 1939, the manager of the tony new Bullock’s department store determined that horseback riding would be a good pastime for many of his new employees. Cowboy culture dominated the little village of Palm Springs, and it would be big fun.
There were a good number of stables serving the big hotels like the El Mirador and The Desert Inn already. Visitors could pay to be entertained. The established riding club in town was mostly for wealthy visitors as rides were generally during the week, when locals had to work.
Harris Posey, the manager at Bullock’s, and a young employee, Ernie Dunlevie decided to organize a club of local riders, regular folk with their own horses.
They advertised in the Desert Sun for participants. The first meeting took place at the Visalia Saddle Shop on Palm Canyon Drive in November 1939 and attracted 40 people. The club was organized and officers elected in anticipation of the coming season. “Los Compadres,” as they dubbed themselves, were a varied and interesting group. They were friends, gathered from all walks of life.
From then on, the club would inaugurate the new season each November with a deep-pit barbecue to welcome back to the desert those who had sought cooler climes for the summer.
How Los Compadres went from riding club to neighborhood
Almost immediately after the club’s founding, World War II broke out hindering the development of the club for the lack of available members. But the notion had taken root and was established enough, like many things in the desert, to persist. Fine horsewoman Jane Hoff joined in 1941. She’d been in a saddle since the age of 2.
A few years later, a clubhouse was fashioned out of the old guardhouse at Torney General Hospital.
A curious headline in The Desert Sun in 1947 screamed, “Headache.” The article continued “Los Compadres seeking site for former Torney guardhouse. The Los Compadres, popular Village riding organization, is having ‘guardhouse-trouble these days. It is highly probably that some members of the Los Compadres, former GIs, will remember the interior appearance of these buildings that dotted army installations where they served during the last war — but that’s not the reason why the organization purchased the former Torney General Hospital guardhouse building. It is wanted as a meeting place for the members. The headache now develops, that having to remove the building from its present site on Torney General Hospital grounds as per agreement with the War Assets Administration, the Los Compadres have no place, where, if moved, it can be set down.”
“Originally, and before the building was bought, the Los Compadres had a site for the building near Smoke Tree Ranch. ‘But,’ pointed out Phil Delano, seeking the assistance of The Desert Sun in finding a location, ‘the place we had in mind is now out of the question. It is watershed area, and the law says the building might be endangered by floodwaters. Nix,’ declared Delano quoting the law, ‘you can’t put it there.’ The building is 25 by 57 feet long and Villagers who may know of a site that could be bought, but cheap, should call Phil Delano….”
By the 1950s Los Compadres had greatly expanded its membership and was completely entrenched in the community, regularly staging gymkhanas, rodeos, square dances, western week, trail rides, pack rides, cookouts of all varieties and the big start-of-the-season barbecue. Jane was always in attendance and spent a good deal of time stomping on the dance floor.
The membership was playing a lot of broom polo, which was hard on the handles, so the club appealed to villagers for donations of old brooms which had “worn out their usefulness on the business end” to be donated to facilitate the games.
A location at the south of town, still quite near Smoke Tree Ranch was acquired for the recycled clubhouse. A neighborhood bearing the name of the club, Los Compadres, grew up around it.
By the 1970s, that neighborhood, Los Compadres Estates was on its third phase of construction. The developer touted the prime, wind-protected, south end location still “far enough removed from the foothills of the San Jacinto Mountains to provide spectacular views all around and appreciably more late afternoon sunlight than enjoyed at homes close to the mountains.”
New buyers were predominantly locals. Offering four customizable models each home included an individually designed swimming pool “with attached hot pool, and a completely fenced back yard.”
Not everyone in the neighborhood was a cowboy, but the western atmosphere was, and is, still pervasive. And the club persists in its annual barbecue and continues to invite the entire town to the festivities.
Jane Hoff lived to be 103 years old, riding almost daily for a good part of that century. Her longevity may be ascribed to her good nature and good companionship, especially at Los Compadres. She never missed the barbecue.
Upon her passing, Jane donated money for a bigger dance floor to accommodate the ever-expanding crowd and also donated to the scholarship fund, which is the philanthropic reason for the event these days, as it funds grants for two graduating high school seniors.
Los Compadres will again host its annual deep pit BBQ to start the season with good cheer and in good company. Everyone, cowboys and regular folk, are invited. The menu hasn’t changed.
On Saturday, Nov. 7 from 5 to 9 p.m., in this longstanding tradition, Los Compadres will host a thousand friends. Tickets can be purchased at the door for $25 for adults and $15 for children at 1849 S. El Cielo Road in Palm Springs.
This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun.
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