Steamboat Hot
Springs
January 2009
By John Evanoff
While most people drive by the chalky looking hills
on Highway 395 south just past the Mount Rose Highway not realizing
much but the smell, this place was once geographically historic
and a bee-hive of commercial activity. It is now active again, but
for a very different reason. But first, let’s take you back
through its recent history of a hundred or more years ago and also
its not so recent history.
In the late 1840’s and early 1850’s,
thousands of settlers moved west through our little valley and many
of them were down right pooped by the time they finally reached
the lower Truckee Meadows around Huffaker Hills and Rattlesnake
Mountain. They camped along the creeks there in the grassy fields
overnight and arose each morning looking south to huge steam clouds
rising into the air. A few of them went to the hot springs to see
for themselves the remarkable natural display including a large
geyser accompanied by the eerie chugging sound of the hot water
moving through the numerous steam pools and mud pots. The spectacle
was both awesome and heartening for the emigrants because it reminded
them of the paddle wheelers on the Missouri and Mississippi where
many of them had begun their trip and gave them hope of seeing the
same on the Sacramento on the other side of the Sierras. These boats
gave off somewhat the same giant plumes of steam and noises so they
wrote in their diaries about the area and a man named Monet called
the place the Steamboat and who soon after set up a bath house at
the hot pools. Many other names were given the springs, but Steamboat
was the one that stuck.
More than two million years ago, the entire south
end of the valley was a field of volcanic domes constantly erupting.
Other parts of the hills and flats were filled with caldrons of
bubbling lava, hot water and mud. Along the entire ridgeline between
Washoe Hill at the south and Verdi to the northwest and then east
along Peavine Mountain to Spanish Springs, lava flowed intermittently
from fissures and vents. The evidence from these flows remain along
the fault lines of this ridge as black andesite and rhyolite fields
(lava rock). Around a million years ago, the several rhyolite domes
and andesite flows above the large magma chamber underneath the
south end of the Truckee Meadows around Steamboat broke at the surface
and ground water rushed in from below the Mount Rose alluvial fan.
The broad alluvial fan of Mount Rose is best seen from the top of
the Huffaker Hills (itself a rhyolite dome) or from the Geiger Grade
lookout. The rhyolite lava and pumice in the area is mostly composed
of quartz and alkali, but it also harbors many other minerals including
silver, gold, arsenic, copper, boron and more. These vents and cracks
on the top ledge of the Steamboat area are also filled with sulfur
and cinnabar. For a time, the area was mined for both of these substances
because of sulfur being used in the production of gunpowder and
cinnabar being melted down for mercury which was used by the miners
to attach gold flecks away from sandstone and quartzite at many
of the regions mines. Another important rhyolite feature is the
obsidian rock used by the earliest inhabitants of the Truckee Meadows
known as the Washoe Indians. The Indians lived near the three creeks
close to Steamboat and they used the hot springs to cook their pinion
nuts in the fall. They also used the hard black shiny obsidian stone
found near the edges of the Steamboat Rhyolite dome in fashioning
their arrowheads, drills and spear points because it gave a very
sharp edge although not as durable as some other stone materials.
The Washoe were extremely methodical in their napping of the stone
as showcased at the Nevada State Museum in Carson City. To this
day, I occasionally sit down and begin flintnapping with some obsidian
I pick up on my hikes in the desert. My favorite pressure flaking
tools are several old deer antlers of various sizes I scored from
a mule deer I hunted when I was younger. I learned the technique
from a Shoshone friend and later worked with a Paiute buddy who
was an artist. The tiny arrowheads I make are extremely rare in
that they are so very small. The larger points are easier and quicker
to make but are not as intricate as the small bird points I like
to create.
Not much is mentioned about the large forest of
petrified tree stumps left from millions of years ago on the hillsides
of Steamboat Hill. If you take a walk up to the top of Steamboat
Hill from behind Galena High School, above the “G” on
the side of the mountain and follow along the canyons and ridges
along the north and south sides, you will notice rocks jutting out
in certain spots that are actually petrified tree stumps and limbs.
The Miocene woods of fifteen to twenty million years ago in this
region were primarily large redwood and probably consisted of an
earlier version of the giant sequoia which is also found throughout
Northern Washoe County in petrified form. The Washoe Indians used
their harder basalt drill points to make holes in the colorful ringed
petrified rock some of which became opalized over centuries of pressures
under the earth. They created elaborate necklaces from the material
and also used it as a form of money for trade with other tribes.
My father and I found several of the ornate pieces long ago beside
the sand dunes of Washoe Lake while arrowhead hunting. The pieces
along with many of our other finds were given to the Nevada State
Museum.
At the time the first white man entered the region
and until a strong earthquake changed the fault structure in the
area in 1900, one geyser at the site shot water as high as 70 feet
into the area and was considered the third largest in the United
States. In the 1960’s, a drilling platform was left with a
pipe sticking twenty feet into the air on the west side of Steamboat
Creek where once several hot pools surged and the geyser again roared
to life although somewhat manmade. The adjoining pipe that juts
towards the creek is still there to view except there is no activity
now due to capping of the wells in the area and the drying of the
lower fields from working wells at the high terrace and above.
Commercial development came to the hot springs
because of the presence of the boiling hot water pools as early
as 1859 with the small bath-house built by Monet followed by a small
hotel and then in 1861 a small hospital was set up by Dr. Joseph
Ellis using the springs as a healing source for aches, pains and
a many other unknown qualities linked by doctors of the times to
the waters. The Virginia and Truckee Railroad set up a train station
beginning in 1871 and the resort/hospital quickly grew to a small
town including saloons and a dance hall, a large stagecoach station,
two large V&T Buildings and the Grand Hotel. The Grand was used
for some of the largest and most notable entertainment events in
Nevada and was visited by some of the more prominent citizens of
the country including President Ulysses S. Grant, many US Senators
and Governors as well as the wealthy and famous entrepreneurs of
the Comstock Lode. Then in the 1900 earthquake, the geyser and many
of the hot water pools dried up and in 1901 a fire burned much of
the town down including the Grand Hotel.
Several companies continued using the waters for
bath houses and the V&T ran a daily train from Reno to Steamboat
until the late 1940’s. The largest swimming pool in all of
Nevada was built at the corner of Highway 395 and the Mount Rose
Highway. It was the size of a football field and including lighting
and bath houses as well as overnight campsites and a picnic ground.
The pool was quite famous for its high diving board, the highest
in the west. There were other hot spring swimming pools in the region
including one in Carson City and one along the Truckee River at
Lawton’s where visitors were welcome to swim at an indoor
pool as well. The massive pool at Steamboat was remarkable in that
it was so big and had an abundant array of amenities. The high heat
of the pools and heavy mineral content of the volcanic waters of
Steamboat eventually gave the owners too many problems to contend
with and so the cooling tanks were taken down and eventually the
Steamboat swimming pool was drained. Many of our neighbors hated
to see the huge pool go, but later a pool at Moana Hot Springs near
what became the minor league baseball park and then one at Mark
Twain Hotel replaced Steamboat for warm water swimming. Summer swimming
in Reno was mostly relegated to Idlewild Park where most of my generation
learned how to swim.
Steamboat Hot Springs is one of the more extensively
studied geothermal areas in all of Nevada and historically, one
of the most written about in the world. The reason is the extremely
rare mineral content, the way the bench moves water from one vent
to another, the sinter flows just southwest of the main terrace
believed to be the largest in the world, the rhyolite domes and
the underlying massive magma chamber. The combination of all these
exceptional geological oddities gave scientists years of data to
study and research. Much of the research is still being studied
at the site by geothermal companies who have drilled holes and begun
to extract the steam to generate electricity. A couple large plants
have been built and more are to be operational in the very near
future because of the high heat of the thermal waters which exceeded
425 degrees Fahrenheit at the base. This heat is the result of the
large magma chamber below the southern part of the Truckee Meadows.
The Earth’s crust is thin along the line beside the Sierra
and along the western edge of the Virginia Mountains because of
the thrust mechanism of the Pacific Plate and the sinking of the
Great Basin to the east. Some geologists believe there is enough
energy below Steamboat and a line extending north all the way to
Lawton’s to power the entire Truckee Meadows. The benefits
of geothermal are immense and the company exploiting the resource
has partnered research efforts with the University of Nevada by
giving them free hot water and electricity to power the Redfield
Campus near the newest plant structure. Some resourceful Reno homeowners
along this line have even had geothermal drill holes dug to extract
the heat and steam for their own electrical and warm water use,
selling reserves to the local power grid.
Above the main terrace at Steamboat where the
largest fissure is found, some extraordinary geology can be seen
including the high terrace which extends upward to Sinter Hill below
the ridge of Steamboat Hill and the mud volcano area which still
shows signs of the small crater that erupted there millions of years
ago. There is also the Silica Pit at the northern edge of Steamboat
Hill and the Clay Quarry and Pine Basin where you may see a few
desert burrow residing. The best way to see it all is to climb to
the top of Steamboat Hill and follow along the ridgelines in every
direction. To the southwest of the hill is where Galena Creek and
Jones Creek come together and further south is the slight outline
of Galena, which I have written about previously. Below the main
terrace is a spot that is protected because of an extremely rare
species of plant known as the Steamboat Buckwheat. The flower blooms
unusually beautiful in the spring. This plant is only found here
and nowhere else in the world, so it is imperative that harm does
not come to this area. The plant is still being studied for its
rarity and botanical properties.
Steamboat has a villa for relaxing in the calming
hot waters just south of the highway on US395 before you enter Pleasant
Valley to the south and from what I’ve been told, it’s
still a treat to bathe in the mineral thermal waters there. So,
after walking all over Steamboat Hill and Galena, it might be fun
to take to the hot water cure for your aching muscles. Have fun
and happy hiking.
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