The photographs appear to have been taken a few years earlier.
#INDIAN HOT SPRINGS SERIES#
15-16.)īurton Frasher (1888-1955), who operated a postcard business headquartered in Pomona California, published a series of “real photo” cards of Indian Hot Springs in 1936. (For more supposed health benefits see: Resources of Graham County compiled by J. There were four water temperatures available, Magnesium Springs at 81 degrees, Iron and Mud Springs at 116 degrees, Rock Springs at 118 and Beauty Springs one degree hotter. “The famous health and pleasure resort” advertised its 1.5 million gallons of daily flow into pools, tubs and mud baths as a cure for rheumatism. The resort was only a short distance off the major cross-country highway, US 70. By 1912 that included local families with modest incomes, along with those who could afford to take the train or drive their automobile. Indian Hot Springs was now a therapeutic and recreational site for those who could pay admission. Notice promotion of the dual role of health or pleasure. “Dropsy” is the archaic term for general edema, usually from a weak heart.
#INDIAN HOT SPRINGS FULL#
(Click on pictures to see full size) There are a lot of typos in the text. This advertisement appeared in the Bisbee Daily Review August 31, 1910, with a drawing of the “hotel and sanitarium.” At that time Bisbee residents could easily reach the hot springs by rail. In 1903 construction was completed on a three-story hotel at the hot springs described by one visitor as “a feudal castle lost in the desert.” In 1905, the largest swimming pool in Arizona, measuring 255 by 70 feet, was added and then enlarged to 270 feet and cemented after 1916. By the end of the 1890s, the Gila Valley, Globe and Northern Railway had been built along the Gila River, providing convenient transportation to Indian Hot Springs from the depot at Pima. The Honeymoon Trail from Utah brought Mormon families to the Gila Valley, some of whom formed the town of Eden in 1880 two and a half miles south of the hot springs. From then on the hot springs were sold as commercial property every few years or so and each successive owner added improvements. Thomas was established by the military about six miles west in 1876. Ben Gardner channeled the flow and diverted water into pools soon after Ft. But when those families were confined to reservations in the 1870s, that opened the springs to commercial development. As the name implies, the steaming waters with curative powers had long been open to free access by indigenous families. Among the hot spring resorts of Arizona, Indian Hot Springs on the north side of the Gila River five miles north of Pima in the wide Gila Valley of Graham County, has always been a popular destination.