In 1900, Cinnabar Springs was a successful California resort accessible only by horseback over a narrow trail, either from the Applegate area on the Oregon side or from the Klamath River on the California side.
Families could camp or stay in the two-story log hotel and choose between a salt spring to cure stomach troubles or headaches and a sulphur spring for rheumatism. Healthy family members played croquet, horseshoes and went dancing on Saturday night. Everyone at least tried drinking the effervescent water, some even competing to see who could hold down the most.
The man who discovered the springs, a bear hunter named Walker, insisted the mineral waters saved his life. He said he was nearly dead when he camped near the spring for a winter and miraculously recovered. Another man who had faith in Walker’s claim, Jobe Garretson, secured property rights and built the first hotel. Garretson died at 91, convinced the waters had given him long life.
Even a wagon road, built in 1905, could not keep people coming to Cinnabar Springs forever. By the 1930s people depended on physicians rather than healing waters, and no doubt preferred to visit resorts on paved highways.