Published January 5, 2006

The Natives of Sonoma Valley were happily aware of the hot water that bubbled to the surface and enjoyed its medicinal powers. Up and down the West Coast, Indians turned their council houses into a form of sauna or sweathouse by pouring water over rocks arranged on a fire.

General Mariano Vallejo named the entire area northwest of the pueblo of Sonoma (although technically within the original boundaries of the “pueblo” which covered 20 square miles) “Agua Caliente,” Spanish for hot water. Vallejo sold 75 acres of Agua Caliente to an erratic character, retired physician Thaddeus M. Leavenworth, who was also an Episcopalian minister and had been San Francisco’s fifth American Alcalde between October, 1848 and August, 1849. He and his wife moved to the area, and he dug a well down into the hot-water spring. Then he built a “swim tank” and a bath house for the commercial use of the public.

One day, in a fit of temper, the good doctor filled the spring with a load of rocks and burned down the bath house. Shortly thereafter he and Mrs. Leavenworth packed up and moved to Santa Rosa where he eventually died in 1893.

Several years after Leavenworth filled in the spring, it was purchased by English immigrant Captain Henry E. Boyes and his wife, who named it Agua Rica (rich water). Captain Boyes rediscovered the source of the hot water in 1895. He built an uncovered swimming pool, originally 150 feet by 75 feet, which he eventually enclosed, and constructed the Boyes Hotel. Its popularity was immediate, enhanced by the fact that it was on the route of a new railroad that ran from Marin County through El Verano, Glen Ellen, and Kenwood on its way to Santa Rosa. We remember having great teenage fun there before it burned down.

Soon nearby the Agua Caliente Springs and Fetters Hot Springs tapped into the hot water aquifer. The community of Boyes Hot Springs grew up around these spas, with cabins and wooden frames for summer-time tents. In addition to new homes, many of the cabins were expanded and improved to become full-time houses among meandering shaded streets.

Shortly after the enactment of national Prohibition against the sale of liquor, federal revenuers and sheriff deputies swooped down on Emma Fetter at Fetter’s Hot Springs, where she served liquor from hidden bottles. The judge decided to make an example of her and sentenced her to nine months in county jail and a $300 fine. He reduced the jail time to 30 days. In 1922, 11 restaurants were hit in a coordinated series of raids, including the unrepentant Mrs. Fetters.

Between the late 1920s and 1940s the San Francisco Seals and the Oakland Oaks of the Pacific Coast League conducted their spring training on ball fields at Boyes Hot Springs, where such future major league stars as Joe DiMaggio, Dom DiMaggio, Ferris Fain and Larry Jansen practiced, and fans could watch free of charge.

A four-day grass fire swept through Sonoma Valley in 1964, burning 25 residences in Boyes Hot Springs. Shortly thereafter the Boyes Hot Springs resort, including its large enclosed pool, went up in smoke, ruining the pipeline to the mineral springs. In 1975, a mysterious fire destroyed Fetters Hot Springs, including a popular restaurant and bar run by character Juanita Musson, who greeted customers with a parrot or monkey on her shoulder and a few choice words for anyone who complained about service.