by Diane Bradyy

great spa needs great mineral water, and the city of Desert Hot Springs, in California’s Coachella Valley, has it in abundance. But where does the naturally hot mineral water come from?

For the answer to that we have to go back to 1913, and a homesteader named Cabot Yerxa. Cabot was quite an adventurer and entrepreneur — in 1899, at the age of 16, he purchased cigars in Seattle for five cents each, took them to Alaska and sold them to Yukon Gold Rush prospectors for $1 each!

In 1913 he homesteaded 160 acres in what is now Desert Hot Springs, about 10 miles north of Palm Springs. He bought a burro, that he named Merry Christmas, and began to build his first desert home. Merry Christmas was a unique burro, even learning to chew tobacco! Cabot’s biggest problem was water, which had to be brought, three times a week, from the nearest railway station, seven miles away. Also, whenever he needed cement, it was off to the station, and he and Merry Christmas would each carry a 100 pound sack the seven miles back.

Tiring of having to import water, he decided to try digging a well. The deeper he dug, the hotter it got — by standing in five-gallon buckets half filled with sand and water he was able to dig for about 15 minutes before having to return to the surface to replace the water and cool off. Eventually, at 36 feet down, the water temperature was 132°F. Not knowing what was in the water and fearing that it might contain arsenic, he used it only for bathing.
Ever the optimist, he began digging another well, about 600 yards away, and this time found cool water. Because of this “miraculous” juxtaposition of hot and cold water, he named the place “Miracle Hill.”

The deeper he dug,
the hotter it got …

Geologists later told him that the land was astride an earthquake fault, with one side producing hot water, the other cold. In fact, Desert Hot Springs municipal water (the stuff right out of the tap) is routinely among the top five best tasting municipal waters, according to an international competition held annually in Berkeley Springs, West Virginia. But people still flock to the local supermarkets to buy bottled water. Go figure!

It wasn’t until 1937 that the hot mineral water was analyzed and people realized the therapeutic properties of the water.

Today, Desert Hot Springs is home to many therapeutic spas and has become known as “California’s Spa City.” And the nicest thing about it is that it is one of the very few places in the world where the mineral water doesn’t smell!

Desert Hot Springs Chamber of Commerce: tel. 760/329-6403; www.deserthotsprings.com. Cabot’s Old Pueblo Museum: www.cabotsmuseum.org.

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