PARADISE LOST The Byron Hot Springs
	DECEMBER 2003

by Carol A. Jensen
Photos by Brad Shifflett

If you stop ten people at random on a street in San Francisco and ask them the question, “Do you know where Byron is?” probably nine of them won’t know the answer. But, if you went to Hollywood 60 years ago and asked the question, some of the biggest stars of that era would be able to tell you exactly where Byron was located.

Most of us today who want to go to hot springs to relax and to soothe aching joints head for Calistoga, but from the 1880s to the 1920s people who wanted to have this kind of experience came right here to East County to bask in the elaborate spas at the Byron Hot Springs Resort, to enjoy the amenities of the large 5-star hotel, or to hack their way around the beautiful golf course.

Water, Heat, and Minerals — Especially Salt
Long before the local indigenous people discovered the springs, deer, bear, elk, and mountain lions were attracted to the hot sulfurous pools and salty waters. In fact, an ancient legend reports that the name, Byron, came about as a report from a vaquero that he had seen a bear, or “bruin” or “bear-on” in one of the hot pools in the middle of winter.

Europeans have known about the “salt springs” at Byron about as long as America has been a nation. Jose Joaquin Moraga wrote one of the first descriptions of the springs in 1776. Much earlier than that the Bolbones (Pulpunes) Indians, which were a sub-tribe of the Bay Miwok tribe, had left a different kind of record in the form of carved bones and stones.

In our modern times, when a twenty dollar bill would buy you more Morton salt than a family could use in a decade, it is difficult to imagine how valuable a source of salt could be in a pre-industrialized economy. In some periods in Europe, for example, salt and gold were traded evenly with each other. The Byron Salt Springs provided an accessible source for this substance that is essential to life itself, and also important in preserving food, curing hides, and, later, in manufacturing. For example, sodium chloride and other minerals in the waters would one day become essential in smelting and iron manufacturing operations.

Of course, people have always sought the waters of the Hot Springs for the purpose most commonly associated with them. The earliest immigrants enjoyed bathing in the pools for their relaxation and drinking the mineral-laden waters for their health.

Early visitors to the Hot Springs might have included Kit Carson and John Fremont. It was probably also visited by John Bidwell and the other members of the first immigrant train to come to Brentwood.

Europeans and Bolbones Indians used the Hot Springs together only until its first owner, John Marsh, lost the claim to the property. An early brochure published by the resort pictures a native dwelling supposedly sharing the site with resort buildings but, in reality, the indigenous people were long gone.

Initial Development Activities
John Marsh, the first person of European descent to live in Contra Costa County, laid initial ownership claims to the “Salt Ponds.” He lost ownership with the writing of the 1850 Treaty of Guadalupe Hildalgo and California Statehood.

A couple of brothers from Michigan, John and Orange Risdon, in 1863 became the first entrepreneurs to make commercial use of the property intending to take advantage of the salt manufacturing opportunities the Springs provided, giving the apparently redundant name to their business, “Saline Salt Manufacturing and Mining Company.”

A few years later improvements were made to the property to make them more attractive to people who sought their waters for health and recreation. Individual springs were dug out, lined, and covered. Bath houses were added, and overnight accommodations were built for visitors to the spring.

Each of the many springs on the property was named according to its content or purpose. The “Salt Springs” were heavily laden with “curative” salt. The “Liver and Kidney Springs” were drunk by many of the guests, especially alcoholics, under the impression that these two organs greatly benefited or were cleansed by its use. The “White Sulfur Springs” and the “Black Sulfurous Mud Springs,” were frequented by patients with arthritis and other diseases of the joints. “Black Sulfur Springs” were used for bathing. When the waters of “Surprise Spring” were drunk, they had a strong (perhaps surprisingly strong) diuretic effect.

The new facilities also included a 40 foot by 20 foot swimming pool, six feet in depth. The pool was called “The Gas Plunge,” because of the carbonated gas that constantly bubbled to the surface of the water. The beginnings of what would become a world class facility were put into place.

Building up and Burning Down
In 1882, the beauty of the resort was enhanced by gardens, exotic landscapes, and spacious graveled drives creating a beautiful oasis in the midst of what was essentially an alkali desert. This was followed in 1889 by the first of what would eventually be a series of three increasingly more luxurious hotels that would be built on the site.

The hotel had accommodations for 50 guests and was set off by a spacious veranda. Several cottages of various sizes were scattered about the site in order to accommodate families or larger parties of guests. Unfortunately, the hotel only survived a little more than a decade because in 1901, while the guests were at lunch, it burned to the ground.

The destroyed hotel was soon replaced by a larger, 3-story hotel with broad verandas providing impressive panoramic views overlooking the San Joaquin Valley. The building had accommodations for 500 people and was designed by the Reid Brothers whose resumé included famous and beautiful buildings, such as San Francisco’s Fairmont Hotel.

Everything was beginning to get modernized in the expanding resort. Indoor plumbing carried not only hot and cold water to the private rooms, but also piped hot saltwater into the private baths in the more expensive rooms. The hotel boasted phone and telegraph facilities. A US Post Office was created on the site before the City of Byron had one.

A billiard room, a ladies’ reading room, and a dining room added to the hotel’s appeal. Outside diversions included a tennis court, a croquet lawn, shuffleboard, and facilities for horseback riding. After sunset the grounds were illumined by gas-powered street lights.

The growing fleet of automobiles began to augment the trains and buses that were bringing an ever-expanding flood of visitors to the Byron resort’s soothing healing waters.

Unfortunately, this second hotel was destined to follow its predecessor into fiery destruction because early on a July morning in 1912 the flames of the dying hotel leaped up to mingle with the colors of the sunrise. No guest was killed or injured in the fire but the loss of the building was complete.

Two years later a third hotel, also designed by James Reid, had risen out of the ashes of its predecessor and opened for business the same year that the famous Panama Pacific International Exposition opened in San Francisco.

The owners, learning their lesson from the destruction of the first two hotels, built a pumping station at the river, which pumped water to a reservoir on a hill behind the hotel and connected to fire hydrants. Whether because of good luck or wiser construction, this third hotel endures on the property until the present.

Fancy Playground for “Lefty” and His Friends
During the subsequent decades the property became the “Byron Hot Springs Resort” and entered into a golden age. It became a mecca for Hollywood stars and San Francisco socialites, attracting the likes of “Lefty” O’Doul, a truly awesome major league slugger of the 20s and 30s who, in his early years as a pitcher, attributed the powers of the Byron Hot Springs mud baths for extending his pitching into extra innings.

In February 1921, Lefty spent ten days at the Hot Springs with a dozen or so of his fellow players — pitchers and catchers from the San Francisco Seals baseball team. The athletes were ostensibly there for Spring Training, but Lefty showed up with a steamer trunk reported to be the size of a freight car. He would change clothes four or five times before dinner.

Other notable guests at the baths included Clark Gable, Jack London, Mae West, Charlie Chaplin, Fatty Arbuckle, President James Garfield, and Francis X. Bushman.

The resort was immensely popular, and a railway depot was built on the property before Byron itself received such a service. In its heyday up to eight trains a day unloaded visitors at the resort railroad station.

The resort became an amazingly profitable undertaking. The proprietor, Lewis R. Mead, was fond of saying, “The Hotel took their bills and the help kept the change.”

From Playground to Prison
During the 1930s the Byron Hot Springs slid downhill into neglect. In the 40s the Hot Springs was renamed “Camp Tracy” and entered into a new role as an interrogation camp where prisoners of war were interned. At the height of the war, during 1944, 921 Japanese prisoners and 645 Germans were residents of the camp and interrogated by representatives from the office of the Chief of Military Intelligence, though no more than 51 captured soldiers resided in the camp at one time.

During the time of the military occupation, the government remodeled the hotel and other buildings on the property, built a garage, and laid several miles of sewer line.

Camp Tracy was closed September 1, 1945 and the leased property reverted to its previous owner, and began doing business as the Byron Hot Springs, Inc.

From Barbed Wire to Prayer Books
Following its chapter as a military detention camp, the saga of the Byron Hot Springs took another unpredictable turn when the property was purchased by the Greek Orthodox Church, which used it as a retreat center. The church made improvements to the property and renamed it “Mission St. Paul.” They also rededicated the “Liver and Kidney Springs Building” as the “Zothohou Peeyee,” which comes out much nicer in its English translation, “Life Giving Spring.”

In tacit acknowledgment of the fact that the waters of the “Life Giving Spring” don’t always give life, the church also consecrated ground for a cemetery, which they named, “Memory Park.”

The Mission St. Paul had a lively religious and social calendar that filled the resort with happy activities. During the summers the property was converted to “St. Paul’s Boys’ Town,” and filled with boys who undoubtedly splashed in the sunlit pools. Other published activities for the camp included hiking, fishing, swimming lessons, baseball, and religious education.

The resort’s role as a religious retreat did not endure, and in 1956 the church sold the property to the Byron Hot Springs Corporation which subsequently defaulted on loan payments causing the resort to revert once again to the Greek Orthodox Church. Since then, ownership of the property has bounced around among a number of private individuals, none of whom were able to do anything noteworthy.

The initial response of everyone who sees the Hot Springs in its current decayed condition is to wonder if the splendor of the old days will ever return. A complete refurbishing of the site would probably run into nine figures. Who has that kind of money?

The opportunity to develop the property remains an attractive one for many groups of people who could provide the resources necessary to get the springs back open, restore the gardens and groves, restore the hotel to more grandeur than ever before, and completely revive the old sense of prosperity. Many residents think this would be a wonderful thing to do. Nobody can tell at this point how likely this is to actually take place, or when it will happen, or who will do it.

The empty grounds and neglected buildings of the Byron Hot Springs currently sit dozing in the East County sunshine awaiting someone with the vision, capital, and energy to rouse them back to life.

How long will they wait? It may be for years or it may be forever.

Carol Jensen is generally acknowledged to be the foremost authority on the Byron Hot Springs. She received a B.A. in U.S. History from UCSB. She is author of a number of books and magazine articles on East County history and board member of The John Marsh Historic Trust. Carol is always seeking additional knowledge about the Hot Springs and asks that if you have any information to share about the resort, to please contact her by email at Historian@ByronHotSprings.com