 and here is history there history is everywhere and here we go thank you very much people have been interested in hot and mineral springs throughout history minerals are not the only benefit of a hot springs the heat itself can have huge benefits for the body many claim the process of raising your body temperature and the rapid cooling that follows results in a deeper more restful sleep maybe this is why why it became a vacation destination during the Victoria era and why people hike over hills and streams to find the pools to soak in today and I'm gonna practice with this we're gonna practice a little bit here wake it up yeah it's light it's lit it just there we go thank you back all right so Jackson County has more mineral springs than any other county in Western Oregon there were reports of as many as 11 or 18 different mineral springs in Jackson County and Oregon is also one of the top states in the country for springs the Ashland area in particular is surrounded by a variety of hot springs and mineral springs but there are others in the valley okay now many of you might have seen the headline in the paper that it was a geology talk for this history presentation the next minute and or two will be the geology section and if you want to leave afterwards that would be fine okay so why are there so many springs Monty Elliott the chairman of the geology department at SOU former chairman said the springs sit between geologic formations broken up by inactive faults these faults sit between the older Western Cascade Mountains and the younger high Cascades to the east the two volcanic regions of the Cascade Mountains geologic province these faults provide an avenue for water to reach great depths it is so deep that the water actually picks up the heat from deeply buried rocks and as the water travels through the rock it picks up minerals such as boron salt arsenic and iron and also Ashland so-called Lithia water has the lithium I don't know why they said it's so called the spring occurs in clusters in four areas of the state and you can see that the clusters there and 1959 or been which was the publication from the Oregon State Department of Geology had an article by Norman Wagner natural sources of carbon dioxide in Oregon and he goes into great geologic and scientific description of the gases of volcanic origin and I will share that document with anybody who wants to see it but one of the geologic phenomena is occurring below the Ashland area two major faults have been identified in the area and they think that's what helps create so many of the springs in 1886 a man named a swope visited Ashland and concluded in the Portland world newspaper of the Times the region is particularly rich in soda and sulfur springs both cold and thermal and as fast becoming a resort for invalids tourists and those in search of the healing waters of nature the opening of through railroad communications will in the near future bring thousands from abroad to the fountains of life and that was the goal of a lot of the settlers that came in in the late 1800s to make this destination for the thousands from abroad we're still in the same one good although there isn't a lot of documentation of Indian use of the springs there are stories and legends that have been passed down and archaeological digs have found arrowheads surrounding buckhorn springs in particular up the green springs the Native Americans knew of the springs and were especially aware of the healing and restorative powers of the waters numerous Native American artifacts from sham it Shasta Klamath and rogue tribes include some arrowheads that date back 4,000 years according to Nan Hannon a former anthropology professor at SOU acorn trees and lush grass probably made it an ideal summer encampment the mud about around buckhorn springs was considered great medicine by the Native Americans and also in other areas I learned last week from Tom Doty who knows these things better than I that they would often the Native Americans would gather the mud particularly around helman springs which is closer to town take the mud drop make it into balls and dry it and then they would trade this as a medicine with other areas and he said told me that these balls have been found as far away as Nova Scotia and they because the mud is so unusual they couldn't verify that so thank you for that information Howard Horowitz a man who wrote his master's thesis at SOU in 1973 wrote the landscapes of hot springs and mineral springs in Western Oregon I have been able to use a lot of his information I've gotten information from Jeff little land from Scott clay from the historical society from the files upstairs in the Ashen library a lot of different places and I have and Ben Truy and I appreciate all the help that I've gotten for this but Howard writes oh and then a plug if you ever want to check out materials from SOU all you have to do if you're not a student is join the hand and friends of the library $45 a year and you can check out materials from there little plug so he writes in his book the landscapes of hot springs he states it's curious that although virtually every hot spring and mineral spring in Western Oregon was described as a medicinal bathing place for the Indians very few accounts remain describing the way in which the springs were used but two of the accounts one was from an article by Bertha Borden and printed in the male Tribune and also the Oregon Journal in 1948 and based on stories that she had heard growing up next one please is the high school medicine in Bear Valley she wrote it is certain that the friendly Klamas and their peace chief Lillet came from the shores of the Great Klamath Lakes to partake of the high school medicine of the springs how they the Klamath Indians learned of the medicinal qualities of the water is not known who taught them about the dangers and uses of the seductive gases emanating from the rocky fishers along the creek is still a mystery well they learned because they they could learn and did but but she also based a lot of her article I found on an article that was by CB Watson next slide please so Chandler Brewer Watson was a topic that we had in our series a number of years ago and some of you may have heard that it was an attorney journalist public servant prospector and historian and also southern Oregon's first conservationist he arrived from Illinois to Ashland in 1871 became prominent in life but also wrote a lot about his reminiscences was the name of his column in the daily tidings and wrote a couple of books also in his book prehistoric Siskiu Island in the marble halls of Oregon 1909 he gives a full description of the area to the east and southeast of Ashland along the foot of the cascades are numerous mineral springs producing copious glows of potable waters of an excellent quality and containing properties highly recommended as medicinal some of these springs are being utilized the water being bottled and shipped in considerable quantities they are highly palatable and are very largely used in mixing fancy beverages and is a use a lot of these springs were the water was taken to the taverns and used as a mix which caused problems during prohibition because they decided that not only could they not have liquor but they couldn't have these mixers and it affected sales quite a bit many say that the Native Americans prize the waters at Buckhorn Springs higher than at any other CB Watson Road in 1914 long before the white man came to this country so long ago in fact that Indian tradition does not fix the date that wonderful collection of mineral springs that promises soon to make Ashland famous was known and valued by the aborigines for their medicinal properties he goes on when I first came there were stories about the aborigines use of the mineral springs especially those known as the Tolman Springs now known as Buckhorn Lodge the escaping gases of which were prized by the Indians as high use gucum medicine I visited them and verified some of the stories told there were the places hollowed out on the banks of the streams where the gases escaped through fractures in the rocks excavated by the Indians in which they treated their patients dead birds squirrels snakes rats and other small animals and reptiles lying in those pits told of the deadly qualities of their carbonic acid gas when not used with caution in fact the same thing may still be seen about these vents from these facts the early settlers called them poison springs the Indians however had learned to use them and valued them accordingly now the term poison springs also has different meaning it can mean poison because of these dead animals but it also in the Native American languages it meant high power and it wasn't necessarily the negative it was this higher power of poison and I heard that from two different historians in this room their method was to find a spot where the gas escaped hollow out a sufficient space spread fur bows in it for comfort place the patient on the bows where he remained under watchful care until he became unconscious he was then taken into a wiki up or tent made of skins and bows and they're put through a course of manipulation until he recovered consciousness then would follow a day or two of sweating and incantations by a medicine man this treatment was continued until the patient was cured or declared incurable all this time they drank the waters from the springs and used it for the vapor baths in their sweat house now CB Watson became good friends with Frank Riddle he's another person who has come up a few times in our history talks he came to live among the Indians many years before perhaps around 1840s took a wife among them and remained with them Frank told him he did not know and the oldest men of the tribes did not know how long the modox and clamus had used the mineral springs in the upper Rogue River Valley they were in use then and appeared to have been for ages the people had a superstition about them and attributed their virtue to the Great Spirit the escaping gas was the breath of the Great Spirit and was a guaranteed of a sure cure if the patient had led a worthy life but sure death if he had not the place in which the Great Spirit chose to administer the benefits of his healing breath was considered sacred and for ages was supervised by a great medicine man this is Frank Riddle's account Watson also told that when the tribes were at the springs it was considered a sacred spite spot and no one was molested or attacked but they didn't count the travel to the springs so everything was sort of fair game till you got there all right next so Buckhorn Springs which was originally Tolman Springs until the 1930s is wonderfully documented Bruce Sargent who is the owner he and his wife owned Buckhorn Springs put it on the National Register and they did he did great research and documentation to get it onto the National Register you can read his full report online I have a copy of it and it will be upstairs in the library after that there's a great deal of information in there but James Tolman began the began the first real development of the springs in 1890 there had been a homestead cabin perhaps by Dr. Colwell before that but Tolman is the one who developed it with an original cabin and built cottages to be occupied by those who wish to spend a season and take a treatment of water and gas Buckhorn Springs Road was part of the Applegate Trail and later used by stagecoaches and freight wagons traveling between the Rogue River Valley and Klamath County Klamath Country transportation played a major role in all of the springs and their development and it also played a role in the demise transportation at you know they had to have roads to get to these faraway places and when a stage road went by your place or you developed a place where the stage road was it was wonderful and then when the stage roads changed or the roads were different or the railroad decided to go a different direction that was a problem by 1900 the springs included the hotel cottages and facilities for visitors to bathe in mud mineral water or CO2 water the water was not as carbonated as that at Wagner Springs so was valued more for its bathing than for its drink the stage road brought the visitors but the railroad bypassed this area and it led to its demise another Buckhorn so this is the lodge here's another lodge photo and another this is the bath house this is where the CO2 vapor baths were now the Buckhorn Minerals Springs Corporation bought the property in 1936 and the springs enjoyed its most prosperous time they had mud baths vapor bath and a resident mature who later ran off with the owner manager but there's a whole another story there were weekly dances and lots of social outings there the owners decided the owners the masseuse and the woman decided to move to see Adel and a chiropractor dr. Wexler bought the place and changed the tone he eliminated the dances and social activities concentrating on his health practices there's some question about his doctor status he claimed he had gone to medical school in Germany though nobody saw the papers he did not believe in medicines but use the waters the vapor and the mud he also used an x-ray machine that could have been poisoning the bodies of his patients he it was a very primitive and he used him for long periods of time his plan to make Buckhorn Springs a thriving health center didn't pan out the public was more interested in new medical practices coming out not mud in water and but he tried and he had a practice then he just kept going in town and I also learned last week that he didn't do with too well in his practice either and that spent a lot of time at a local pub where he died falling off the stool thank you anyway he died in 1962 another woman bought it was her personal residence until 1987 when Bruce and Leslie Sargent bought it they've been upgrading restoring and bringing the springs back to a wonderful functioning resort area thus the baths are not available to be used but the the whole spirit of the place is really quite wonderful and I recommend all to go up and check it out and they have a great book that is probably on that table their cookbook and in that they have a cookbook from Buckhorn Springs and throughout it are a lot of historical references and essays okay Larry next one is so there's some springs that are outside the Ashland area and this is one it's called the Holcomb Mineral Spring in the Gold Hill district you can see the qualities of the water there in 1920 the owner was Thomas Rice he built five cabins and bath house water was cold and had to be heated well a field geologist in 1940 a man named Mr. Rice no Ray treasurer did a report for the state on the Holcomb Mineral Springs and he states that Mr. Rice appears to be unable financially to fix up the spring cabins and bath house so that the resort would attract the kind of people who would spend money on such recreation but instead and this is from his report the principal activity at present is occasioned by the analytical work of a Mrs. Joe Moore of Gold Hill she is a self-instructed analyst and she has her own special process for recovering various metals from the water she reports gold and mercury a Lewis has tested the water for gold with negative results it appears that Mrs. Miller is either pulling a fast one or is unintentionally salting her samples and securing results that cannot be duplicated except by the secret process which she would not share according to Rice there are a group of men who are anxious to buy this property if Mrs. Miller can further demonstrate to them the mineral content of the water Rice is not figuring on developing the spring for its metal content another is Colstein men mineral springs just outside of Ashland near the California border was the Colstein mineral springs established by Byron Cole in the early 1880s his home became a stage stop on the toll road that ran over the siscues and in 1881 he built a large three story lodge with a wraparound porch on the second story the spot appended on the South Pacific railroad for years it was a center for social activities known up and down the Pacific coast for its hospitality fresh air food mineral water from the 1890s through the 1920s and the ladies wore fine dresses to dinner there were 25 rooms in a campground that could handle a hundred people the mineral water contained iron and was charged with carbonic acid is this one from Colstein no that's okay never mind but next slide eventually a bottling works was established and tourists could take some with them the label on a colstein water bottle claimed the water is good for kidney stomach and rheumatic troubles and biliousness so one of the gentlemen at the meeting last at the talk last week sent me a bunch of slides he's been collecting these bottles the company lasted at least until 1943 when nine cases of its water was seized by the federal government for misbranding for false and misleading statements on its label and you can read that federal case u.s. versus nine cases of colstein natural mineral water September 1943 but then the main line of the railroad shifted to Klamath Falls and tourist traffic dropped off so the post office closed in 1943 and the mineral water production ceased another is dead indian soda Springs this is by this is a sign that is up in the area it's near Eagle Point you can sell it's been well shot at but this does tell a little bit of the history of it it was located on dead indian Creek near its confluence with little butte Creek 35 miles east of Medford in the Eagle Point vicinity it was a very popular summer campground near the turn of the century the Springs were rich in sodium carbonate iron magnesium and sodium hydroxide was discovered by European settlers around 1871 when John Tyrell stopped for a drink while chasing an elk became a popular campground in the 1880s and 90s Charles Wilkinson was a deputy forester and when he retired they gave him a little bit of land there he built a home and several rental cabins near the mouth of the creek and that has now become camped Latgawa which is owned by the Methodist Church and is still operating in the later 1920s Lou Bean bottled some of the mineral waters and sold the water to Brown's Tavern in Medford so that must have been a rep after prohibition which came in ash in Oregon in 1916 and nationally 1920 it was a very popular resort in the 20s as weekend resort and the Wilkinson ended up sending it selling it to John Tyrell the son of the elk hunter he improved it adding running water and cabins and in 1932 2,500 people came there the population was really pretty small then 1,500 of them using the resort the rest were campers some Indian relics have been found nearby not at the springs themselves but in the vicinity during the depression the CCC built a fountain and rock path around one of the springs and this gradually was washed away during the floods in 1955 64 and 97 okay the oldest resort in southern Oregon and close to Buckhorn Springs is Wagner Soda Springs if this picture doesn't do it justice but it's a beautiful location tradition tells us the first white men found them in the 1840s by one of the Applegate parties on an exploration trip camping overnight at the springs a 1914 Ashland tidings article states there are several Oregon pioneers now residing in Ashland who recall the springs and partaking of the waters as early as 1853 at that early date settlers were yet few and far between throughout the entire Rogue River Valley but the Soda Springs above Ashland were well known and indeed practically the only known mineral springs in this section that was 1853 on the banks of Immigrant Creek a 20 room house was built in 1870 by dentist Dr. Calwell who may have been the one who built the small cabin before Buckhorn around Buckhorn Springs he bought it and named it the Soda Springs house although the springs had been used for years it now became a popular retreat for family picnics as it was only a two-hour ride about 10 miles from Ashland by buggy or wagon on the stage road between Ashland and linkville which is Plymouth Falls John Marshall Wagner bought it in 1885 and developed it further a post office next slide was established there in 1886 in the following year the completion of the Oregon and California railroad improved access directly across from the springs according to the tidings stood a pretentious 24 room hotel where the elite of Ashland as well as long-distance travelers gathered to socialize in such a beautiful area this was considered the most elegant mineral spring though I think some people think Colstein was but to me it was interesting February 12th 1894 the tidings announced there will be a grand ball at the Soda Springs Hotel on February 22nd the sports during the day will include a shooting tournament for turkey's beef etc now this is February 1894 so they're they're getting all dressed up to go to a grand ball in February it just I can't imagine what the roads were like but they're a social group this 1890s all right Wagner developed a bottling works in 1891 and he called it the Siskew natural mineral water which is what this is a bottle that Jan Wright brought in went from her collection and it says Siskew natural mineral waters Soda Springs Oregon thank you Jen the spring was concreted to a depth of five feet and fitted with a bottomless copper tank that could rise and fall with changing air pressure gas pressure this gas was used to recarbonate the mineral water in the bottle the plant pioneered the use of crown top bottles in southern Oregon different colored glass bottles were mostly consumed by locally though the railroad delivered to Portland and San Francisco I mean this was nationally our water was going all over transportation played a role here also the new highway 66 did not go by the house which led to its demise then the post office closed state prohibition in 1916 that dealt the final blow to using the water as a mixer with liquors although one of the first spas also one of the first to close its doors the old Soda Springs house burned in 1926 another hotel that was local is the White Sulphur Springs hotel that ran from the 1870s to 1930 adjacent to the South Pacific railroad tracks it supplied it had seven or eight different mineral varieties of mineral waters being piped into the building this is right downtown it's where Oak Street tank and steel moved in after and now it's Plexus the hotel accommodated up to 40 guests many were from crews on the railroad construction from the Ashland mine and the quartz mill and somewhere year-round guests employed in town birth of Borden who we heard of earlier who wrote the early account in the paper one early writer wrote one early writer states the White Sulphur Springs flow within the corporate limits of Ashland it was noted that one of these springs increased its flow perhaps 50-fold immediately following the earthquake in San Francisco April 1906 and continued so augmented for several days but finally returned to normal I read in other reports that after the earthquake in San Francisco some springs fizzed up and then died and it really seemed to affect it which not being a geologist surprised me quite a bit okay next twin plunges the Ashlands Mineral Springs Natatorium better known as twin plunges opened as a gala event on October 30th 1909 I would just like to point out this book because we have the author in the audience and we'll talk about him in a moment this $40,000 project created two 100 foot long pools one for the men one for the women and the building itself was considered a major feat of construction with foundations 12 inches thick there were springboards slides high dives and trapeze rings the balcony could seat 500 people and a 64 foot by 100 foot solid maple dance floor doubled as a skating rink the heyday years ended with the proliferation of home bath tubs many people would come to these baths because they could bathe the whole family at one time and not heat any water so who knew so home bath tubs came in and also motorized travel where people could take their cars and go wherever they wanted and they weren't so restricted management woes and competition from helman baths and Jackson hot springs the corporation dissolved in January 1919 and the building was torn down in the late 20s but then in 1931 William Briggs purchased the property which still had the two swimming holes next slide please a waiting pool and holding tank for $500 and spent 38,000 on renovation 1931 so this is the beginning this is in the depression he sold many of the large timbers for $500 and made his initial investment back right away after a series of mishaps ranging from burst pipes to a white enamel surface that turned brown upon contact with the sulfur water and I read that a number of places the pools open June 26 1931 in a downpour yet celebrations continued for weeks with the bathing contest next slide please diving competitions and a style show parading up the center ramp of the pool before 1500 spectators that is a lot of people it changed owners three times and provided a gathering place for area residents some churches even use the pools to baptize the faithful L. Wilsteader who's in our audience and you can hear his talk he gave a talk for the historical society along with Bev Lerberger and Ben Truy he was talking about twin plunges she's talking about Jackson hot springs and Ben was talking about a murder but it's online and you can get it on YouTube and it's fascinating it's a it's a fascinating talk the stories of southern Oregon on YouTube thank you Maureen for that too said it took one spring and two wells to fill the pool the well stutter sold it in 1978 and now a bank and the food co-ops sit on the site next slide please the table rock sent an article from October 1981 states that long before able helman acquired his land claim the Indians had discovered the warm sulfur springs which float in the northwest corner of the bay area they thought the white sulfur water had medicinal benefits and many of them bathe there several villages had been established nearby but when helman turned the region into his cow pasture the Indians moved to more remote areas this is the area where the mud balls were created correct the first white man to test the curative powers of the water was James Russell he burrowed into the sand allowed the water to flow around his rheumatic joints and upon emerging from the mud declared himself cured reports of the magical water spread throughout southern Oregon and soon dozens of dozens of sufferers arrived at the cow pasture to try the waters eventually it was determined that the mud baths cured not only rheumatism and sciatica but skin diseases and stomach troubles disappeared as well well he decided that people wallowing in his field wasn't the best way to use these mud baths so in 1886 grand helman built a small bath house with tubs and three rooms three years later he built a wooden swimming pool and charged the kids ten cents for a dip helman baths was born by 1900 the helmans realized they needed a bigger pool using sandstone blocks and pebbles for lining because of the difficulty of maintaining highly charged water in concrete this highly charged water is a theme you'll keep hearing next slide please the pool was built in 1902 with a large center slide and ropes hanging from the rafters later a baseball diamond and a grandstand were built trees were planted for shade and beauty there was a small heated pool that claimed more health giving properties but this was mostly a recreational endeavor after automobiles became popular helman constructed cabins for the tourists in an oral history interview mrs. Almeida Coder who was the granddaughter of able helman said that her uncle Otis charged only 25 cents admission if the office furnished the hosiery there was a 10 cent fee additional some of the women thought they had to wear hosiery mrs. Coder added the lady wore the ladies wore bloomers and on top of the bloomers was a rate waste arrangement and then the skirt went down below the knees you can imagine how much swimming a woman could do in a costume like that but anything else would have been absolutely indecent in 1956 the complex was closed in 1979 the building burned and in 1980 the pools were covered with a steel building for centuries native americans honored the warm springs on the banks of bear creek as a sacred ceremonial site this is the jackson hot springs area out of respect for the sanctity of the land and water spirits first nation elders tell us that warring nations put down their weapons in the vicinity of the hot springs moreover the warm springs were revered by a number of pacific northwest tribes as a birthing sanctuary indigenous populations traveled hundreds of miles to burn in the springs a custom that was later adopted by early settlers this is from the jackson well springs website which has a great deal of information also about the about that one next slide please an early photo shows it to look like a small lake dug out of a field it was originally part of a ranch belonging to a man named jackson and in 1862 eugenia jackson dedicated the artesian waters to sanitarium and notorious purposes when she applied for water rights the 22 acre ranch included seven hot springs and was leased by mr and mrs jason ottinger for development as a spa on the condition that the jackson name be used the ottinger's built the large pool in dance hall in 1922 next slide the property is next to the railroad and people would get off the train and spend the weekend the dance hall burned in 1933 and an open-air pavilion was used for dances after that these springs have been in continual commercial use since shortly after the turn of the century and are still open to the public historical society has wild photos and another jackson hot springs all right and then the next one there isn't much knowledge of the indian's use of lithia springs the springs were hidden in the middle of immigrant creek and could be seen as active springs only in late summer when the water was low but in 1907 harry silver and gh gillette noticed bought 10 acres of land surrounding the spring and built a wooden dam to divert the stream over to the rocky northern bank silver sent samples of the water to a chemist in san francisco for exact analysis he reported that ashon's lithia water had the second largest lithium content of any known spring in the world silver and gillette built a bottling plant and sold the water to visitors and stores the water contained lithium and 12 other minerals and laced with carbonic acid gas people found immediate relief from a number of ailments and orders came in from all over the u.s. silver bought out gillette bought another 40 acres and drilled another well about 200 feet east of the lithia spring this was common where they would send the water down to san francisco chemists to determine what was in this and the number of the different spa areas did that then silver built the pompadour chief spring house over one of the natural lithia springs he named it after pompadour bluff the towers over at dead indian road which is sort of by grizzly peak winery which in turn but this pompadour bluff i think and what's with the name it was named after the ladies hairstyle of the times i guess it kind of looked the poofy anyway i didn't do it um and he had contacts though my sister told me to wear a bathrobe to this but um he had contracts with businesses in portland and chicago this lasted five years and was then closed to prohibition and rising fake fake cross costs silver wanted to develop develop a large spa similar to saratoga springs in new york he'd been a number of times back there he wanted a golf course hotel and sanatorium and was making plans to do this a lot of plans when in cambert greer a newcomer to the area and now the new owner of ashland tidings greer too thought that lithia water would make the area famous but he wanted the water pumped to the center of town for use silver wouldn't give up his water rights they fought greer used the newspaper to promote his ideas but he was losing silver wouldn't give up the water rights so then they had the idea to investigate the land right next to silvers and found a much larger spring so greer went out when he found that spring and it was even bigger he used the tidings to push his ideas to get the city to support this development to pay for the development of the spa and in 1914 ashland was going to be known as the larry next one please known as the carlsbad of america and the campaign motto was when ashland grows when lithia flows so sorry about the quality of the art of the newspaper but the whole issue this december 31st issue was totally dedicated to this upcoming election and using ashland as a health spot in fact the two weeks prior was just article after article about this idea medford wanted in on the action and they brought down a professor from the university of oregon who lectured to hundreds of people in medford and assured them that it was possible to pipe the mineral water and gas from around the area ashland and get it into medford but they were smart and they waited a little bit to see how it went here so large public meetings were held the largest ever according to the paper to discuss the bond measure which would finance the development and the bond measure passed four to one for a hundred and ten thousand dollars in bonds to pipe the lithia water to a fountain in the plaza and sixty five thousand dollars for roads fountains pergolas and more well the sixty five thousand dollars was a great thing for us because that created the basis of lithia park the roads the pergolas the statues and that is still standing lithia fountains were installed at the south pacific depot then at the ashland hotel then near the band shell and later in nineteen twenty eight and twenty nine at the plaza and the one outside here at the library almost from the start there were leaks and the copper staples that were wound around the pipes dissolved in the water in 1916 which is when everything was supposed to open from the 1914 bond measure the idea for the sanatorium and the lithia springs water commissioned disbanded by the 1920s most of the lines had corroded and were abandoned the library line operated until the mid-thirteenth mid-thirties then that too was too corroded and the rail service was routed to klamath falls in 1928 which didn't bring the tourists to ashland so there's a and and today you can get the lithia water in the back room there it's not lemonade but there is some there's some cups and there's a lot of water there i brought a whole lot to medford and i left with a whole lot the staff didn't even want it in the staff lounge but you can get it today down at the plaza and there's spickets and then there's also i mean there's a little the bubbling things you can drink from or there's a spicket you can fill your jugs with and then also at the gazebo at the park so what there was there's been a couple of medical studies of the lithia water dr paul blackley a professor of psychiatry at university of oregon medical school uh requested permission from the city i think this was in the 70s for tests of lithia waters he wanted to test the hypothesis to the effect that small traces of lithium in public water supplies are required for proper function of the brain and rumor has it that there was a lot of talk about this study going on and then there weren't weren't many results but the rumor in the community psychiatric community was that didn't do much um but in the tidings in 2008 they have those uh in you know how they have those great history sections doctor there was one on dr mark bradshaw who was a national psychiatrist said that although lithium can have a mood stabilizing effect and is used to treat mania the level of the chemical in the fountains is much lower than standard treatment doses in 2008 the public works department tested it at 6.71 milligrams of lithium per liter of water a standard dose for a medical patient would be 1200 milligrams per day so a person would have to drink about 150 liters of water in a day to get a medical dose which would which would lead to water toxicity so that doesn't work but he doesn't discount the idea that lithium in water may be somewhat therapeutic there's not been any at that time there's not been any studies done on low lithium doses so i can't say for sure steven petrovic an analytical chemistry professor at s o u in 2008 said he the thinking there could be a placebo effect but also bathing in lithia water instead of drinking it may be beneficial all the disabled ions in it may have an effect were told to bathe in epsom salts why not in lithia water in 1982 the drinking fountain on the plaza which has been there since world war one was awarded landmark status from american water works association in denver the fountain joined 70 other water landmarks across the country with significant historical relationship to the water supply so that kind of gave a lot of impetus to keep that fountain going i think a side um a side story i think from the mineral springs is on dry ice natural carbon dioxide gas the manufacturer of solidified carbon dioxide dry ice is one of organ's lesser known mineral products so you can see this headline development of dry ice from valley gas spout may bring big industry so once again there's sort of a theme there too trying to bring this big industry to the area um and the article in the syskew news headline was old indian baz will be used in making dry ice buckhorn springs a health resort where the indians gathered for ages before white men came to this country will soon be a memory the carbon dioxide gas said to be the largest deposit in north america will be capped and used in the manufacturer of dry ice they brought people in from new york who got the government federal government interested because two thousand dollars worth of gas was escaping every day most of the dry ice is um manufactured from the dioxide gas derived from the burning of lime coke in factories so they thought this was going to be big and in 1932 there was an there was an article in 1930 and 1932 well then there's an editor's note in the buckhorn springs book which is where this dry ice thing was going to be the well was drilled 25 feet deeper as planned however the carbon dioxide gas flows drastically flow drastically decreased and was replaced by an artesian well after heated discussions it was decided that the previous amount of co2 obtained would be acceptable and a lead plug was inserted into the well to stop the flow of water unfortunately or fortunately depending on one's perspective the lead plug stopped everything and the project was abandoned more recently in the early 50s and 60s the dry ice corporation operated a plant which captured the excess carbon dioxide from the highly charged lithium water and solidified it through super cooling but this folded us as it became cheaper to manufacture large quantities of carbon dioxide synthetically than to trap it in the spring water Native Americans respected the springs stories tell of them traveling distances to visit the springs give birth get well and there is report the general tolman invited some individuals from the Klamath and Modak tribes to the tolman springs to explain to him how to use them before indoor plumbing many enjoyed outings to some of the dozen or so mineral water and gas bath sites in and around Ashland jackson hot springs helman baths and colstein springs were commercial favorites the city of ashland was all in a fizz over the fizzy water that was a headline money was spent to develop the various springs the public came some were healed some enjoyed the dances and swimming and soaking people continue to discover the springs in the wilderness or stop by jackson well springs the only commercial venture still going the popularity of mineral springs at the turn of the century faded away but the interest in the hot waters the mineral properties continues to intrigue and bring people to all the pools today thank you very much