Museum 'goes with the flow'

Hot Springs History

Dick Perue, Special to the Saratoga Sun

Hot springs history

Compiled by Dick Perue

A natural phenomena known by many monikers such as “Big Medicine”, “Healing Waters”, “Magic Waters”, “Medicinal Water” or “Hobo Pool” is no doubt responsible for the location of Saratoga.

Hot mineral water comes to the surface in the Valley through fissures at the peak of a geological formation resulting from the upheaval of a rock ledge.

Legends link Indians to the hot springs. The Indians believed in the supernatural powers of the waters. They believed bathing in the mineral waters granted health and long life. Warriors did so believing the first to bathe would be the most enduring fighter.

Early settlers in the Upper North Platte River Valley refer to the hot springs as the “Indian Bath Tubs.

Professor W. H. Reed, who in 1868 visited Saratoga to study and gather specimens, wrote: “The hot springs at this place used to be very popular with the Indians, they would resort to this Valley by the thousands. This was neutral ground for every Indian tribe, for they all wished to bathe in the waters and be healed. No matter how much they might war outside of its boundaries, here they would fraternize and bathe and be healed. All roads led to these hot springs, and there were deeply worn trails made by the dragging of teepee poles. The waters were “Big Medicine.”

It appears it was common for tribes to declare a place like the hot springs neutral ground.

Reed also mentions emigrants brought smallpox to the Indians who then came to the hot springs for treatment.

Treatment consisted of sweating a patient in the hot water then plunging him into the cold waters of the nearby river. The result was nearly always fatal.

The Indians decided a bad spirit had gotten into the waters and was killing all who bathed in them so, from then on, they shunned the Valley and called the hot springs “Bad Medicine.”

William H. Ashley and his band of fur trappers are said to have passed through the Valley as early as 1825, but it wasn’t until the Overland Stage line was moved south in 1862 that many emigrants saw the Valley ... but that’s more of the story for next week.