Shields Date Gardens
Floyd Shields founded his date farm in 1924 and spent the following decades becoming one of the leading authorities on date cultivation in the United States. He bred two varieties himself — one he called 'Blonde' and one he called 'Brunette' — and they remain exclusive to Shields, unavailable anywhere else. Sometime around 1950, he made a film. He titled it 'The Romance and Sex Life of the Date.' It still runs in a small theater on the property today.
The Film That Never Stopped Screening
The Romance and Sex Life of the Date explains the pollination biology of the date palm — a dioecious plant in which male and female flowers grow on separate trees, requiring human intervention for commercial cultivation. Floyd Shields made the original film around 1950 as an educational tool for visitors who wanted to understand what they were looking at in the groves. The film was updated in 2007. It still screens in the on-site theater at regular intervals for guests who visit Shields Date Gardens today. A 39-page booklet published in 1950 covered the same material in print. The film's longevity — over seven decades of continuous exhibition — reflects both the genuine curiosity visitors bring to the date-growing process and the Shields family's commitment to explaining it.
Floyd's Inventions
Beyond breeding his Blonde and Brunette varieties, Floyd Shields developed two processed date products that broadened how the crop could be used: date sugar and date crystals. Both are made from dried and ground dates and can be substituted for conventional sugar in recipes, though they behave differently due to their fiber content and different glycemic properties. These innovations reflected the practical orientation of a farmer who understood that expanding the ways customers could use his product extended the market for it. The current Shields building, which has been in use since 1953, features the knight-in-armor sign that has become the operation's visual trademark — visible from Indio's Highway 111.
Continuity After the Shields
The Shields Date Gardens operation was eventually purchased by the Jewel Date Company from Thermal, California — another Coachella Valley date producer that chose to acquire and continue the Shields brand rather than let it lapse. The decision preserved both the retail operation and the Shields varieties that Floyd had spent decades developing. The transaction represented a kind of institutional inheritance within the regional date industry: one grower passing the work of another grower forward. For visitors to the Coachella Valley, Shields remains a working destination — a place where you can taste the date varieties, watch the film, buy processed date products, and understand, briefly, why this particular valley became the center of American date production.
From the Air
Shields Date Gardens is located along Highway 111 in Indio at approximately 33.71°N, 116.27°W, in the central Coachella Valley. The operation's distinctive signage and the surrounding date palm groves are visible from lower altitudes in good conditions. The Coachella Valley date palm groves are a characteristic aerial feature of the eastern valley — identifiable by their distinctive feathery canopies in dark geometric patterns against the sandy desert floor. Palm Springs International Airport (KPSP) is approximately 10 miles to the northwest. The valley floor at this location is approximately 50–70 feet below sea level.