Natural hot springs were site of early farms, ranches

Though mineral hot springs no longer flow at Agua Caliente, it was once a famous health resort that drew many visitors as well as pioneer farmers and ranchers.

Agua Caliente was first settled by indigenous natives of the Southwest. In 1744, Father Jacobo Sedelmayer visited an "Indian rancheria" at the hot springs. He noted that the natives used the springs for medicinal purposes, determined it would be a fine site for a mission, and named the place Santa Maria del Agua Caliente.

When Father Francisco Garces visited the rancheria a year later, he referred to it simply as Agua Caliente (Spanish for hot water) and noted that its inhabitants were Maricopa Indians.

The priests never did claim Agua Caliente, which is about 80 miles east of Yuma. But around 1865, famed Indian fighter, territorial politician and pioneer farmer King S. Woolsey claimed the land.

Though Woolsey had also noted that the natives used the springs for medicinal purposes, he and his partner, George Martin, nonetheless developed the area for commercial farming and ranching. They dug irrigation ditches, planted crops and irrigated the crops with water diverted from the nearby Gila River.

Woolsey operated Arizona's first flour mill at Agua Caliente and brought the first threshing machine into the territory, according to the authors of "Manhunts and Massacres."

However, it was believed by some that Woolsey's claim on Agua Caliente may have angered the Apaches, who raided his farm three times and stole more than 300 head of his livestock. The Apaches also attacked the Oatman family, who were traveling near Agua Caliente by covered wagon.

Woolsey shot and killed an Apache chief and hung his body from a mesquite tree as a warning to other would-be raiders, according to J. Ross Browne in "Adventures in the Apache Country."

Elsewhere in the state, Woolsey led unofficial campaigns against the Apaches. He was notorious for the 1864 Massacre at Bloody Tanks (Gila County), where he lured some Apaches to attend what they believed was a peace conference, then signaled his men to shoot them.

At Agua Caliente, Woolsey posted armed sentries on the surrounding hills to protect the women of his household while they bathed in the hot springs.

His partnership with Martin only lasted about three years. After selling out to Woolsey in 1868, Martin farmed his own homestead and contracted to build the Toltec Canal below Agua Caliente.

Woolsey took charge of Burkes Station, a stage stop on the Butterfield Overland Stage Route near Agua Caliente.

It's likely that travelers to the area may have contributed to Agua Caliente becoming known as a prominent health resort by 1873. People would camp out and bathe in the springs. The naturally hot mineral water was different temperatures at different places, with the hottest water nearest the mountain, at 108 degrees.

Woolsey sold part of his holdings to Yuma merchant David Neahr, and upon Woolsey's death in 1879, Neahr inherited the land while Woolsey's heirs retained the water rights. Agua Caliente flourished as a health resort for years to come.

In 1888, Martin's daughter-in-law, Sadie, arrived by buckboard to Agua Caliente, where she saw many mesquite trees, little streams of water, a store, little shacks and tents. In "My Desert Memories," Sadie later wrote that most of the tents belonged to campers bathing in the warm springs for their

"medicinal value." The bath houses were made of upright ocotillos placed closely together, but they had no roofs.

Melons were evidently grown in the area. About a mile below the springs, Sadie and her husband, John Martin, bought melons and mesquite honey from a family with children whose "little tummies podded out full of melon."

For approximately 25 miles up and down the valley, ranchers had formed the "Farmers' Canal Group," and every so often, the Martins would pass a camp of men working on a portion of the Toltec Canal.

On the Martins' farm near Agua Caliente, Sadie once drove the mules while John plowed. "The mules were lively and I had to go so fast that John could hardly hold the plow straight for laughing," she wrote.

But desert life was hard and lonely, and the Martins sometimes found solace at Agua Caliente, where they spent "wonderful moonlit nights" singing to banjo music and visiting with locals as well as resort guests.

Word of healing waters at Agua Caliente were further spread by articles published in the Arizona Sentinel newspaper in Yuma. People allegedly found cures for everything from blood poisoning to virus-induced vision loss, as well as relief from rheumatism.

Yuma merchant Althee Modesti bought Agua Caliente in 1900 and built a hotel, bath houses and a store. Up to 300 guests, including the campers, stayed at the hotel at one time. Modesti improved roads and connected a telephone with the Southern Pacific Railroad station in Sentinel, 10 miles to the south.

"Buffalo Bill" Cody and Arizona's first governor, George Hunt, were among the hotel's registered guests. Local farms and ranches provided beef, milk, fresh butter, eggs, vegetables and even fruit for the bustling resort community.

During World War II, Gen. George S. Patton was among the U.S. Army officers who headquartered at Agua Caliente while several divisions of troops trained in the surrounding desert. The Army built a large swimming pool fed by the springs, and USO tours featured such Hollywood stars as Johnny Weissmuller and Betty Grable.

In 1960, Jim Fuquay leased the hotel and "17 free flowing springs," did some dismantling and remodeling and advertised the reopening of the Agua Caliente springs across the country. People once again sought relief with the springs' curative properties.

But in 1963, Carl Anderson drilled several deep irrigation wells near Agua Caliente, and within one day, the springs stopped flowing. Over the years, crops such as cotton have been irrigated with hot water pumped from the wells on the Anderson Farm.

The old hotel is boarded up and crumbling down. The Gila River barely flows, if at all.

But hay, cotton and produce have been grown near Agua Caliente in recent years and fish and jojoba are still farmed nearby.

In addition to the above-referenced sources, this article is also based on archives at the Arizona Historical Society/Yuma and The Sun.

WHAT'S IN THE WATER

A 1902 University of Arizona, Arizona School of Mines water analysis of the springs at Agua Caliente found the following minerals:

*Sodium chloride - common salt

*Sodium carbonate - carbonic acid used to make soaps, in water softening and for bleaching

*Sodium silicate - water glass, used in a variety of industrial applications

*Sodium sulphate - Glauber salts used in making detergents, also a cathartic

*Potassium sulphate - used as a fertilizer

*Calcium sulphate - gypsum used as a soil amendment and to make plaster of Paris

*Magnesium sulphate - Epsom salts

*Iron and alumina (aluminum oxide)

*Lithium