Big Horn Hot Springs Touted

Since this week’s “Wyoming Livestock Roundup” is featuring Hot Springs County in its Fall Cattlemen’s Edition, it seems appropriate to pass along some historical information we discovered on the internet – so it must be true, right?

Here’s just a small part of the valuable information discovered in the April 1927 issue of “The Big Horn Hot Springs Health Reporter,” published in Thermopolis. I cannot guarantee its accuracy, but it sure makes for interesting reading. Enjoy:

That the World May Know

The State of Wyoming came into possession of the Big Horn Mineral Hot Springs and the one-mile square upon which they are located, known as the Big Horn Hot Springs State Reserve, in 1897. From 1897 to 1915 nothing worthy of attention had been done toward development or improvement of the Reserve, except the building of a light steel bridge across the Big Horn River. From 1915 until 1921, appropriations were made by the Legislature, which permitted the construction of water mains for both cold and hot water, the construction of a state-owned bathhouse, the laying out and development of landscape work. Since 1921 and until the present time, appropriation have been made practically for maintenance only and the progress of the reserve as a state property of inestimable value help up just this length of time.

No effort has ever been made by the state of Wyoming to advertise these wonderful springs until 1925 when a state folder was issued for distribution.

We are constantly criticized for the fact that the general public is not familiar with the wonderful results of bathing and drinking these mineral waters. Thousands of people have been cured here of rheumatism, chronic stomach trouble, nervous diseases, blood diseases and skin diseases. These waters accomplish without medicine and without that fearful knife of surgery, the most remarkable results. Our friends have been our advertising medium, telling from their hearts the stories of their cures.

Once each month, this little paper will bring to you the stories of your friends who have been here and are willing and anxious to spread the word regarding the marvel of nature’s most effective remedy, water from the Big Horn Mineral Hot Springs.”

The publication notes,

A bath in the Big Horn Hot Springs Mineral Waters is a joy to which every citizen of Wyoming is entitled. These marvelous springs are owned by the state and state money is being spent to develop them.

If you have a friend who is ill of rheumatism, stomach trouble, neuritis, eczema, paralysis, high blood pressure, blood disease, send his or her name to the “Health Reporter” and advise consultation with our Health Department. Consultation is free.

Personal accounts of the miracles of the healing waters also appear throughout the paper, including,

O.V. Shull of Parkerton, Wyoming, has discarded his crutches and again walks as a man should after the most severe attack of inflammatory rheumatism of his life . . . but, then, that’s a cure for the next time we plunge into this hot subject.