Ontario Hot Springs | |
---|---|
Avila Hot Springs Hidden Valley Hot Springs Hawaiian Hot Springs Ontario Plunge Budan Hot Springs | |
Coordinates | 35°10′50″N120°42′11″W / 35.1805°N 120.703°W [1] |
Elevation | 9 m (30 ft) [1] |
Type | Thermal |
Discharge | 50 US gallons per minute (190 L/min) [2] |
Temperature | 57 °C (135 °F) [3] |
Depth | 14 m (46 ft) [3] |
Ontario Hot Springs is a hot-water well in southern San Luis Obispo County, California, United States. The geothermally heated water from the well is the central feature of a resort called Avila Hot Springs near Avila Beach.
Ontario Hot Springs is about 8 mi (13 km) south of the city of San Luis Obispo along U.S. Route 101 in California. [4] According to the U.S. Geographic Names Information System (GNIS), Ontario Hot Springs is located "along Gragg Canyon, 3.1 km (1.9 mi) east of the community of Avila Beach," at an elevation of 9 m (30 ft) above sea level. [1] The resort is in a "level hollow surrounded by rural hills". [5]
The hot springs are the result of an attempt to drill for petroleum on the ranch of Herman Budan in 1908, [6] which his daughter Edith Budan had recently inherited. [7] [8] The drill struck "half a mile east of the San Luis spring, and in it a flow of gas and water similar to that in the early well had been obtained". [6] Ontario Hot Springs are named after Ontario silver mine in Utah, which Herman Budan codiscovered with George Hearst and which became the basis of the Hearst family fortune when it was commercialized at some point after Budan departed Utah for California. [7]
Circa 1917 Edith Budan ran the springs as a health resort. A report from the California mineral and mining bureau stated, "The temperature of the water is given as 175° Fahrenheit; it is too hot to be borne by the hand. The flow is through an iron pipe 3' above the ground and the water domes up over this noticeably. The equipment at present consists of three tubs for bathing, to which the water is conducted directly from the well". [9] A county history reported, "She is conducting and is the owner of Ontario Hot Springs, located on the state highway between San Luis Obispo and Pismo, on a part of the ranch owned by her father...Here Miss Budan has erected suitable buildings, and a bath house with eight tubs. The accommodations are modern, and suitable attendants are provided for her patrons. She has built up a fine business and a great many people have been benefited by treatment at the Ontario Hot Springs." [10] The springs, along with the Ontario Junction House, with its saloon and cabins, became a stopping point for the Hollywood crowd on their way to Hearst Castle at San Simeon, and visitors reportedly included Charlie Chaplin, W. C. Fields, and Rudolph Valentino. [8] Amenities of the resort reportedly included alcohol during Prohibition, [11] and sex workers. [8]
Budan died in 1948 and left the springs to a charity that sold the land in 1954, [12] and the property was sold again in 1969, undergoing several name changes between then and the 1990s, including Hawaiian Hot Springs, Hidden Valley Hot Springs, and Avila Hot Springs. [8] As of 1969, the 16-acre (6.5 ha) Hidden Valley Hot Springs spa was "deteriorating" and the new owners renamed it Avila Hot Springs and began renovations. [2] Circa 1979, the springs were operated as Avila Hot Springs and RV Park, and offered an outdoor swimming pool and soaking pool, and tiled "Roman tubs" indoors. [5] The indoor tubs offered water up to 130 °F (54 °C). [5] By 1990, the Los Angeles Times described it as "favorite vacation stop for families who like the informal atmosphere. Children especially enjoy the 50-by-100-foot freshwater swimming pool, recreation hall, and snack bar". [2] According to the GNIS, "A proposal was submitted by the RMMC in August 1990 to change the name Ontario Hot Springs to Avila Hot Springs. On 10 September 1992, the U.S. Board on Geographic Names (USBGN) rejected the proposal in support of the California Advisory Committee on Geographic Names, which disapproved the name because the change appeared to be for commercial reasons." [1] Avila Hot Springs continues to operate as a resort, offering cabin and tent camping with a spring-heated pool. [13]
Reported water temperature ranges from 128–178 °F (53–81 °C). [7] According to a 1968 survey, the water contains sodium bicarbonate and has a strong odor of hydrogen sulfide. [14] The water has 540 mg/l total dissolved solids. [3]
San Luis Obispo County, officially the County of San Luis Obispo, is a county on the Central Coast of California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 282,424. The county seat is San Luis Obispo.
Sycamore Mineral Springs Resort is a resort located in San Luis Obispo County, California. It is located near Avila Beach. This resort is mostly known for its mineral springs as it rests atop a natural hot mineral spring. The property spans 116 acres (47 ha) and offers guests a variety of activities. The resort was originally known as San Luis Hot Sulphur Springs.
Gilman Hot Springs, also known as San Jacinto Hot Springs or the Relief Springs, is a hot spring system in the Inland Empire area of Southern California. Located near Potrero Creek, the San Jacinto River, and California State Route 79, the springs system consists of "about half a dozen" springs named for the Mexican land grant Rancho San Jacinto Viejo.
Seminole Hot Springs is an unincorporated community in Los Angeles County, California, United States. Seminole Hot Springs is located in the Santa Monica Mountains near Cornell, 3.6 miles (5.8 km) south-southeast of Agoura Hills at an elevation of 932 feet (284 m).
Bimini Baths was a geothermal mineral water public bathhouse and plunge in what is now Koreatown, Los Angeles, California, US. It was situated just west of downtown, near Third Street and Vermont Avenue. Bimini Baths contained a natatorium, swimming pools, swimming plunge, Turkish baths, a medical treatment department, and bottling works.
Dirty Socks Hot Spring is a formerly developed hot spring near Death Valley, Inyo County, California, in the United States. A sulfur spring, the naturally occurring unpleasant odor may have been compared to smelly socks. The water is also often discolored with algae growth. Another explanation is that the spring was named from the fact miners washed their dirty socks there. The name may also be rendered as Dirty Sock, singular.
Wheeler Springs is an unincorporated community that grew around a set of sulphurated hot springs in Ventura County, California. It is located 6 miles north of the Ojai Valley, within Los Padres National Forest. It is named for Wheeler Blumberg, who founded the town in 1891, and the many natural hot springs.
Tuscan Springs are a group of springs in the U.S. state of California. Tuscan Springs was named for the fact its borax-impregnated waters were chemically similar to the springs of Tuscany, in Italy.
Sespe Hot Springs are a system of thermal springs and seeps that form a hot spring creek in the mountains near the Sespe Condor Sanctuary near Ojai, California.
Lyons Springs, sometimes Lyon Spring, originally Nogales Hot Springs, was a naturally occurring sulphur spring and associated resort in Matilija Creek Canyon, near Ojai, Ventura County, California. Located between Vickers Springs and Matilija Hot Springs, the Lyon Spring resort was established in the 1880s.
Encino Hot Springs are historic thermal springs located at the site of Siutcanga village, a settlement of the Tongva-Kizh people of the area now known as Southern California. It was used by several tribes of Indigenous peoples for thousands of years. Later, after settlement, the artesian springs were used as a water source for Rancho Los Encinos in what is now the San Fernando Valley region of Los Angeles County, California. In the 1880s it was a rest stop on the Butterfield Stagecoach route. The springs are located in the modern-day Los Encinos State Historic Park.
Eden Hot Springs was a historic hot springs and resort in Riverside County, California, United States.
Urbita Hot Springs was a historic hot springs and amusement park in San Bernardino County, California, United States. Urbita Springs Park was located between E Street and Colton Street in San Bernardino where the Inland Center mall stands today.
Gaviota Hot Springs is a geothermal feature in Santa Barbara County, California, United States. The two pools are accessible from the Gaviota Peak trail in Gaviota State Park. Gaviota Hot Springs is sometimes called Las Cruces Hot Springs or Sulphur Springs. The hot springs lie within the Hot Springs Creek watershed, near the junction of U.S. Route 101 and California State Route 1.
Veronica Springs, also Veronica Medicinal Springs, was a cluster of natural springs along Arroyo Burro creek in Santa Barbara County, California, United States. Veronica spring water was not a therapeutic spa water or a table water but a medicinal mineral water with high magnesium levels. The waters had a yellowish tinge and a strongly purgative-laxative effect, and beginning around 1887, the water was bottled and sold as a health tonic. Veronica Water peaked as a brand in the 1910s. The springs were capped off in 1962.
Alvarado Hot Springs was a 20th-century geothermal well in Los Angeles County, California, United States. A bathhouse was built next to the water and a therapeutic spa was operated on the site for several decades.
Delonegha Hot Springs are located in Kern County, California, United States, northeast of the city of Bakersfield and southeast of Glennville. Delonegha is one of several hot springs adjacent to the Kern River and State Route 178. The springs lie within the boundaries of Sequoia National Forest, "100 yd (91 m) down a steep dirt trail" from the highway. Except for a brief period in the first years of the 20th century when there was a small resort at the site, the Delonegha springs have remained largely undeveloped.
Democrat Hot Springs, named for the Democratic political party, is a geothermally heated spring located 17 miles (27 km) northeast of Bakersfield, California, United States, on the south bank of the Kern River and on the north side of California State Route 178.
La Vida Hot Springs were a historically significant natural spring and nearby hot-water well in Carbon Canyon, Chino Hills, Orange County, California, United States.