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Torney General Hospital

was a US Army Hospital during World War II

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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 14, 2026
Entity authorityQ85810214 ↗
Source-derived summary

Torney General Hospital was a US Army Hospital in Palm Springs, California, in Riverside County used during World War II. Parts of Torney General Hospital are now the Desert Regional Medical Center.

In November 1945 Torney General Hospital was closed and the Federal Works Administration sold the site. The Torney General Hospital became the Palm Springs Desert Hospital and the Palm Springs Desert Medical Plaza. The hospital is now called the Desert Regional Medical Center. The El Mirador Tower is still a landmark at the entrance to the hospital.

History

El Mirador Hotel

The El Mirador Hotel opened on December 31, 1927, as 20 acres Desert Resort. The hotel was built by Prescott Thresher Stevens and the Los Angeles architect firm of Walker & Eisen. El Mirador Hotel was a busy spot visited by Hollywood stars and the wealthy. At the 1928 opening were: Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford and Lillian Gish. The hotel had an open policy, frequent guests were the Marx Brothers, Al Jolson and Albert Einstein.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Torney General Hospital” as was a US Army Hospital during World War II. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Torney, General and Hospital.

Editorial reviewA strong contextual entry point for chronology, institutions and public events when official records are distinguished from later interpretation. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1945, 1927, 1928—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Torney, General and Hospital providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Torney General Hospital”, the useful work is to connect “was a US Army Hospital during World War II” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Chronology, provenance and viewpoint should be read together before a broad social or political interpretation is accepted. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 14, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q85810214. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1945, 1927 and 1928.

Critical limits

Institutional narratives can privilege the records that survived while minimizing voices that were never formally collected. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.

Best used for
  • Event chronology
  • Institutional context
  • Locating named record creators
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Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Torney General Hospital”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Torney General Hospital primary sources, Torney General Hospital archive and Torney research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Torney General Hospital”?
  2. Which voices are present, absent or mediated by the institution?
  3. What chronology connects this entry to wider political or social change?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Torney General Hospital” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.