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Before the wine, they came for the waters

Posted on November 11, 2010 by Sonoma Valley Sun
 In 1895, Captain H. E. Boyes struck 112 degree water at 70 feet while drilling for a well. He immediately built “the finest hot mineral water resort in California.” Many renovations later, it is today the Fairmont Sonoma Mission Inn and Spa.

In the 1870s Sonoma was in a sorry state. The army left in 1852, the gold rush was over and the business from prospectors was gone. The city had no government infrastructure. The grapevines, providers of the chief agricultural crop, were diseased with phyloxera.

And the train went to Petaluma. Passengers from San Francisco alit from the Paddle wheel steamboat at the Embarcadero at the mouth of Sonoma Creek and boarded a coach for a long, bone-shattering ride to town.

Things changed when the San Francisco-Northern Pacific line came to town. Visitors boarded the railroad from the ferry pier at Sonoma Landing, near the mouth of the Petaluma Creek, to Wingo near San Pablo Bay. Tracks went north through Schellville, followed Eighth Street East, turned west on East Spain Street and continued to the station and roundhouse on the plaza.

The train offered a short and comfortable ride to town and cut the trip from San Francisco to less than half a day. In response to demand, hotels and spas rose quickly. On the Plaza, the Garibaldi Hotel, the first three-story building, was built in 1880 joining the Toscano, the Union (1849). the El Dorado, and the Tecino (now the Swiss Hotel).

In 1882 the train moved up the valley and a two-story depot was built at El Verano providing access to the hot springs in Agua Caliente, Boyes Hot Springs, and Fetters Hot Springs. Tourists came to take the waters, and hotels, summer cabins and tents sprang up between Sonoma and Kenwood.

El Verano was as hot as the bubbling springs, with two rail lines. Round-trip Sunday excursions were offered for $1.00 on both the Southern Pacific, traveling through Schellville to Santa Rosa, or the Northern Pacific, from Tiburon to Glen Ellen through Boyes Hot Springs.

By 1900, 40 resorts and hotels in the Sonoma Valley competed for guests by offering a variety of amenities. In Sonoma. the Union Hotel boasted electric lights while the Lawrence Villa offered accommodations for 100, plus a dance hall and billiard parlor.

The Oak Grove Resort on Petaluma Avenue provided croquet, shuffle road and a dance hall, while the The Agua Caliente Springs Resort, the Eleda Hot Springs, and the Boyes Springs Resort offered luxurious accommodations on beautifully landscaped acres. The larger hotels met the trains with their own horse-drawn buses.

Not all the hotels were large or luxurious. Some were family hotels and others offered food and attractions for French, Italian, or other national groups. At the popular price of $6 to $7 a week, guests enjoyed three hearty meals a day and gentlemen had wine at dinner. Food was served family style on long tables. Rates ranged from $14 per week at the large luxurious hotels to $5 a month for a tent camp in Agua Caliente or Vineburg.

In 1942, with bridges and highways in place, the last railroad tracks were abandoned, but not before Sonoma and Glen Ellen had been established as an attractive spot for tourists.

In 2010 the Sonoma Valley Visitors Bureau tallied 68 hostelries, ranging from the largest hotel with 226 rooms to many small Bed and Breakfasts offering one or two rooms.

Author Ginny Richardson, a member of the Sonoma League for Historic Preservation board of directors, is the manager of the Joseph Hooker House museum.




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