 The Desert Museum had evolved to reflect the community's growing interest in its natural science and American Indian collections and programs.In 1952 the desert wildlife reserve habitat natural 'open air natural history museum' and botanical garden was added, and the name for all was the Palm Springs Desert Museum.The Desert Museum started to transition to an art museum in 1953 when desert landscape paintings by Carl Eytel were donated by Cornelia White, Isabel Chase, and Earl Coffman.