Friday E-dition: Aetna Springs’ Second Life as Wildland
By Kathleen Scavone
Summary: A hike through Aetna Springs Preserve reveals a Pope Valley landscape shaped by native plants, mineral springs, resort history and quicksilver mining. The preserve, protected by the Land Trust of Napa County, includes redwoods, serpentine soils, wetlands, springs and rare plant habitats that connect it to more than 22,000 acres of protected land. Once tied to the historic Aetna Springs Resort and nearby mining claims, the land now carries both ecological value and traces of the people and industries that moved through it.
“The historic Aetna Springs Resort dates back to the late 1800s and became one of California's best-known mineral springs destinations,” — Melanie Parker, CEO of the Land Trust of Napa County
Aetna Springs, Where Resort History Meets Protected Wildland
by
Kathleen Scavone
NAPA VALLEY, Calif. — The oldest glory is the changing of a season where we become landscape detectives in order to learn how a part of history that is both arboreal and earthbound stitches the earth into ribbons of stories. Thanks to a hike at Aetna Springs Preserve organized by Napa Valley’s chapter of the California Native Plant Society and information provided by Land Trust of Napa County — along with some sleuthing on the internet — I have a whole new appreciation for the remote Pope Valley area east of Calistoga that was once a resort, a hot springs and a quicksilver mine.
“The historic Aetna Springs Resort dates back to the late 1800s and became one of California’s best-known mineral springs destinations,” said Melanie Parker, the Land Trust of Napa County’s CEO. “The resort property and our preserve are separate properties, but their histories and landscapes are closely intertwined.”
Interwoven stories abound about the natural springs and resorts that were popular in the counties of Napa, Sonoma, Lake and Mendocino in the 1850s to 1920s. Zem Zem Springs, Napa Soda Springs, Walter Springs and many more invited both travelers and locals to enjoy the unsurpassed scenery, delicious climate and unrivalled beauty. Most of all, according to the reprint of a historic advertisement for hot springs called “Handbook of Calistoga Springs or Little Geysers”: “The great attraction is the Hot Springs. ... Unlike most of the natural treasures of California they are no new discovery, but have been from time immemorial the resort of the Indians from far and near.”
Aetna Springs was one of those popular resorts, and the Aetna Spring Resort is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Its nomination for that recognition was submitted in 1987. The document, 23 pages long, cited major references for claiming the site’s historic value. It mentioned Slocum, Bowen & Co.’s “History of Napa and Lake counties,” 1881, and numerous Napa Register articles in the 1880s, along with St. Helena Star articles in the 1870s and 1880s. Cited also was a promotional pamphlet for Aetna Springs dated 1879 by the Bancroft Library at UC Berkeley and the California Historical Society.
The document cited the significance of the area: “Aetna Springs was one of California’s famous mineral spring resorts of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The complex is largely intact, with few alterations subsequent to the last major renovation in the early 1930s, and is one of the finest remaining examples of its type and period in the state. A number of the buildings are architecturally distinguished, and the complex of rustic buildings and associated landscape features are a major statement of the regional ‘First Bay Tradition’ of the Arts and Crafts design philosophy.”
Vintage Vocab: Spelling Bee Noir
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I was with a group of about a dozen hikers up a dirt road and past the storied Aetna Springs Resort. The steep terrain offered sightings of many California native plants such as woolly sunflower, toyon, morning glory, peregrine thistle, Pacific fescue native grass, woolly paintbrush, iris, miners lettuce, blue-eyed grass, globe lily, lilac, Ethereal spears, clarkia and many more specimens. Near the 2-mile mark we were treated to some fantastic redwoods and ferns of several species, along with cooling, gurgling creeks. We enjoyed a staggering diversity of plant life. We also saw evidence of many animals that live here — a dead rattlesnake and critter scat of various species.
“Native plants support native pollinators, birds and other native wildlife,” said Henni Cohen, president, Napa Valley Chapter of the California Native Plant Society. “Because they have evolved together, the more diverse the native plant population is, the more native pollinators and wildlife thrive.”
Cohen went on to say that different native plants bloom at different times of the year, thereby providing year-round food and shelter. Planting a variety of native plants in gardens supplements the native plant populations in the wild. Click here to find out more about the importance of preserving and conserving native plants. To explore ways to incorporate native plants into your garden, click here. To see many native plants, visit the Martha Walker Native Habitat Garden in Skyline Park, 2201 Imola Ave., Napa — maintained by the society — and attend the native plant sales each year at Skyline Park in April and October. For more information, visit the website.
Parker discussed the Land Trust’s Aetna Springs Preserve in depth.
“The Aetna Springs Preserve is not the historic resort property itself, but it is located within the same landscape and has a direct historical relationship to the resort,” she said. “The preserve encompasses 320 acres near the end of Aetna Springs Road, one parcel removed from the Oat Hill Mine Trailhead, and sits above the historic resort area.”
She said that historically the property was used by visitors to the Aetna Springs Resort. Guests would travel uphill to visit a stone bath built along a stream on the property. The ruins of that bath, now more than 100 years old, remain on the preserve today.
From a conservation perspective, she said, the preserve protects an exceptionally important landscape. Prior to conservation, the property faced potential vineyard conversion and limited residential development. A vineyard suitability analysis identified approximately 130 acres with characteristics favorable for vineyard development, making protection of the property particularly significant.
The preserve is primarily forested with Douglas fir, gray pine and knobcone pine, and it contains a band of redwoods that are among the most interior redwoods within the species’ natural range. It also includes serpentine soils, which support an unusually high diversity of rare native plants.
The property protects the headwaters of Swartz Creek, a perennial stream that flows into Lake Berryessa, along with numerous springs, wetlands and a rare wet meadow. These water resources contribute significantly to the ecological diversity of the area. The preserve is also strategically important because it connects to more than 22,000 acres of contiguous protected lands, including the Dunn-Wildlake Preserve (formerly Wildlake Ranch), Montesol Ranch and Robert Louis Stevenson State Park, helping to maintain a major wildlife corridor across the Blue Ridge-Berryessa region.
The same forests, springs and mountain landscapes that attracted visitors to Aetna Springs more than a century ago are now permanently protected for wildlife, water resources, scenic beauty and future generations. The preserve also forms part of the scenic backdrop above the historic resort and contributes to the character of the larger Aetna Springs area.
Recently, LTNC accomplished more than 100 acres of forest thinning and restoration work. The preserve also has longer-termed fuel breaks that have assisted in managing both the Glass Fire and the Pickett Fire, Cohen said.
The Aetna Springs area is both a storied place from yesteryear and a landscape filled with unique plants of interest to the Land Trust of Napa County and the California Native Plant Society. It is filled with springs, views and redwoods, and it also has another layer of history. A plaque set in stone near the historic resort, dedicated on July 17, 2010, by the Grand Parlor of the Native Sons of the Golden West tells of some further layers of history here.
“The intersection of the Phoenix Mining claim, patented November 15, 1861 and the Washington Mining claim, patented December 20, 1862 once was inhabited by a community of several hundred people and gave the appearance of a small town,” it says. “The headquarters consisted of several bunkhouses, horse stables, cookhouse, dining hall, blacksmith shop, the Washington Mine store and many other buildings. It served as a stagecoach stop on the 12 mile wagon trail from here to Calistoga. The Phoenix Mine was the first quicksilver mine in Napa County and was accidentally discovered by a deer hunter, John Newman, who found traces of cinnabar after a fire in these hills. The mine was named after the legendary Phoenix bird which rose from the ashes. In its heyday the Phoenix Mining Company produced 60 flasks of quicksilver per week and employed 45 men, many of whom were Chinese laborers.”
The quicksilver, or mercury, mentioned on the plaque refers to what became another industry in Napa and Lake counties. Mercury, when dropped, forms smaller droplets and was used in older thermometers, fluorescent light bulbs and electrical switches. It was historically used to process gold extraction. This naturally occurring chemical element found in rock acted as a sort of magnet in capturing microscopic gold flakes in the area’s gold mines, such as on St. Helena.
It will be interesting to see what becomes of the Aetna Springs Resort, now closed. History, hiking and the diversity of unique areas prove that it’s intriguing to find. As John Muir said, “When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.”
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Kathleen Scavone, M.A., retired educator, is a potter, freelance writer and author of “Anderson Marsh State Historic Park: A Walking History, Prehistory, Flora and Fauna Tour of a California State Park,” “People of the Water” and “Native Americans of Lake County.” She loves hiking, travel, photography and creating her single-panel cartoon, “Rupert.”
Today’s Polls:
Poem of the Day:
“The City in the Sea”
By Edgar Allan Poe
Lo! Death has reared himself a throne In a strange city lying alone Far down within the dim West, Where the good and the bad and the worst and the best Have gone to their eternal rest. There shrines and palaces and towers (Time-eaten towers and tremble not!) Resemble nothing that is ours. Around, by lifting winds forgot, Resignedly beneath the sky The melancholy waters lie. No rays from the holy Heaven come down On the long night-time of that town; But light from out the lurid sea Streams up the turrets silently— Gleams up the pinnacles far and free— Up domes—up spires—up kingly halls— Up fanes—up Babylon-like walls— Up shadowy long-forgotten bowers Of sculptured ivy and stone flowers— Up many and many a marvellous shrine Whose wreathed friezes intertwine The viol, the violet, and the vine. Resignedly beneath the sky The melancholy waters lie. So blend the turrets and shadows there That all seem pendulous in air, While from a proud tower in the town Death looks gigantically down. There open fanes and gaping graves Yawn level with the luminous waves; But not the riches there that lie In each idol’s diamond eye— Not the gaily-jewelled dead Tempt the waters from their bed; For no ripples curl, alas! Along that wilderness of glass— No swellings tell that winds may be Upon some far-off happier sea— No heavings hint that winds have been On seas less hideously serene. But lo, a stir is in the air! The wave—there is a movement there! As if the towers had thrust aside, In slightly sinking, the dull tide— As if their tops had feebly given A void within the filmy Heaven. The waves have now a redder glow— The hours are breathing faint and low— And when, amid no earthly moans, Down, down that town shall settle hence, Hell, rising from a thousand thrones, Shall do it reverence.
About the author: Edgar Allan Poe, 1809-49, was an American poet, fiction writer, editor and critic whose work helped define the Gothic strain of American Romanticism. His poems and tales often use formal musicality, repetition, heightened atmosphere and symbolic landscapes to explore death, grief, terror and states of psychological extremity. He wrote outside the dominant Transcendentalist current of his time and became one of the most influential American writers in the development of the modern short story and the literature of the uncanny.
“The City in the Sea” first appeared in an earlier form as “The Doomed City” in Poe’s 1831 collection “Poems” and reached its final form under the title “The City in the Sea” in 1845. The poem’s still water, ruined architecture and personified Death are characteristic of Poe’s Gothic imagination, but the poem also shows his gift for sound and suspended atmosphere. Its vision of a city emptied of ordinary life yet heavy with ceremony and dread makes it a strong fit for a meditation on abandoned places.
Are you a poet, or do you have a favorite piece of verse you’d like to share? Napa Valley Features invites you to submit your poems for consideration in this series. Email your submissions to napavalleyfeatures@gmail.com with the subject line: “Poem of the Day Submission.” Selected poets will receive a one-year paid subscription to Napa Valley Features (a $60 value). We can’t wait to hear from you.
Today’s Caption Contest:
Pick your favorite caption or add your own in the comments below.
Possible Captions:
“Never feed them directions. They’ll come back with friends.”
“If they approach, don’t make eye contact and slowly chew some grass.”
“When they ask where the old resort was, just gesture vaguely with your antlers.”
“The trick is to let them think they discovered the trail.”
“Remember: They are more afraid of quiet than we are of them.”
Last Week’s Contest Results:
In “New Rituals for Death Take Root in Napa,” the winning caption was “He’s a little square, but so are most of my friends,” with 44% of the votes.
Caption Options:
“We met at a tasting. It’s complicated.”
“At least one of us has structure.”
“The relationship had body, balance and several obvious red flags.”
“He’s a little square, but so are most of my friends.”
“I asked for something with legs.”
Today’s Puzzler: Answer + Explanation:
D. Ampelography is correct.
Ampelography is the identification and classification of grapevines, traditionally by studying leaves, shoots, berries and clusters. The word comes from Greek roots: ampelos, meaning vine, and -graphy, meaning writing or description.
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The views, opinions and data presented in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy, position or perspective of Napa Valley Features or its editorial team. Any content provided by our authors is their own and is not intended to malign any group, organization, company or individual.
Very interesting article, starts to get you excited, maybe a new exploration / recreation opportunity, but unfortunately the article barely touches on when or if this preserve will be open to us. A big carrot, but we might as well be talking about a moon base visit in the 22nd century.
Napa County is mostly agriculture and natural preserves, but it's very frustrating how little of it is accessible. Interesting point out to Skyline ... if you want to see something like this, go to Imola Rd ...