The Story

World War I veteran Bill Underhill came to Twentynine Palms in 1928. The 2021 brochure records that he helped build roads and the community’s first public swimming pool and was active in American Legion Post 729. He established the weekly Desert Trail, publishing its first four-page issue on April 18, 1935, with the declaration “Watch Twentynine Palms Grow!” Prudence Mason married Bill in 1941 and helped with the newspaper.