The Coachella Valley is the primary date-growing region in the United States, responsible for nearly 95 percent of the nation's crop and is celebrated each year in Indio during the Riverside County Fair and National Date Festival. The earliest attempt at growing dates came about in 1890 when the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) imported date palm shoots from Iraq and Egypt. The imports were almost all male seedlings and produced poor fruit. The Coachella Valley showed promise, so USDA horticulturist Bernard Johnson planted a number of shoots that he brought back from Algeria in September 1903. On his own initiative, Johnson imported more shoots from Algeria in 1908 and again in 1912. The area's entire date industry can be traced back to those original USDA experiments near present-day Mecca. Date groves were grown from present-day Cathedral City to the Salton Sea, but most date groves were replaced by development by the 1990s. Today, nearly all the date groves are in the East Valley area south of Indio, near Coachella and east of La Quinta. If you are lucky, you may get to sample some dates on our San Andreas Fault Tour!