Memories of Garland from Monroe Monitor July 31, 1985 (Courtesy of the Monroe Historical Society).
Garland Mineral Springs: 100 years of fascination
by Nellie E. Robertson
Garland Hot Springs, 14 miles north of Index in the heart of the Cascade Mountains, has attracted natives and visitors alike for nearly a hundred years and interest in the area hasn’t waned.
The present owner, the Rev. Cameron Sharpe and his late wife Medora, of Sultan, operated the Garland Mineral Springs during the 1950s.
Sharpe, now a widower, would like to see the place as it was before the devastating floods and fire; a place where Christians could gather in a wholesome environment, but his coin purse is empty.
Medicinal qualities found
Dr. J. N. Starr of Chicago was the first to develop the site when his wife, Carrie Starr, was afflicted with a swelling in her right knee which was diagnosed as being tubercular. A series of doctors told her amputation was the only answer.
The last two doctors consulted suggested Dr. Starr bring his wife to Puget Sound where there was no frost; a complete change might help her improve.
The Starrs arrived in Snohomish in August, 1888 but the change did not seem to improve her swollen knee and Dr. Starr had about decided to go back to Chicago when he learned from an Englishman about some wonderful springs in the valley of the North Fork of the Skykomish River near the place now called Index.
The Englishman told them the springs were so charged with gas that a bottle would not hold the water. He also said he had been in Baden Baden, Germany, and the water of these springs was much better.
The trek begins
In March of 1889, Dr. Starr found a guide and started for the springs with a pack train. He found the springs and stayed a few days building cabins and preparing to take Carrie into them.
In May of that year, Carrie, age 37, went by horseback along a poor mountain trail to reach the springs. The first night they stopped in Sultan and the next stop was near Index.
Her knee was so painful she stayed there with her maid and the rest of the party went on. In a few days, Carrie followed. In a deposition dated March 6, 1928, when she was 84 years old, she said: “On reaching the springs and not finding the comforts of life, I was not so well pleased, and I decided that I would not bathe in the water.
“But as time went on and my knee got much worse, I finally decided to bathe in the spring water.”
She took two baths every day for three weeks and at the end, she had no swelling in her knee at all.
In August she had to go back to Snohomish for the winter and in the summer of 1890, Dr. Starr had things much more comfortable for Carrie. She “bathed in the springs a great deal and was greatly improved.”
She fully recovered from her infirmity and Dr. Starr “took steps immediately to secure title to the lands on which is located these wonderful springs.”
Title secured
The Starrs secured a 40-acre land grant in May of 1896 signed by President Grover Cleveland and the area was known as the Starr Hot Springs. In 1928 it was known to the U.S. Forest as Soda Springs.
The springs became the Garland Mineral Springs in 1932 when the land was purchased by Charles Garland, Fred Monroe, both of Wenatchee, and Will Jorgenson of Everett.
In two years, there was a 3-story resort hotel with about 40 cabins, a heated swimming pool 105 by 40 feet, and a power plant activated by creek water.
Bert Spada of Index recalled the owners invested a great deal of money in the development and the county road winding five miles up from Galena to the site.
“As soon as the road was done, they had the grand opening and I was invited,” Spada said. “They used to have dances every Saturday night.”
Spada was county road foreman in the area then, a job he held for thirty years, and he did the best he could to keep the road open.
Garland became ill and went back to Wenatchee and the place was eventually sold. It’s said the U.S. Navy had a radio school there during World War II and that it was also a rehabilitation center.
In 1953, the Rev. Cameron Sharpe and his wife Medora, and his sister-in-law Laura Mae (Mooney) Hackama of Gold Bar, bought the property and operated it until the hotel burned Jan. 26, 1961.
Hakama’s first husband was killed in an Army Air Force jet accident in 1953 and she took some of the insurance money to pay half the down payment as a memorial to him. She lived with the Sharpes on the property for eight years.
They bought the Garland Mineral Springs for a place to present the gospel and provide a place that would be uplifting to people. Services were held in the lodge and on the porch.
At that time, in addition to the hotel, there were eight sleeper cabins which also had some facilities, and 14 housekeeping cabins, each with a sink, stove, toilet, electricity, water, and sewer.
The hotel had 22 bedrooms on two floors and every room had a washbowl. There were two lavatories on each floor and two bedrooms had bathtubs. There were showers and tubs in the basement with mineral water piped in to two of the tubs.
The power plant was run on water from Colton Creek. Chairs and tables in the lodge were hand made in Everett.
“It was a pretty nice operation at that time,” Sharpe, who still lives in Sultan, said.
They started the Troublesome Trail Dude Ranch for Children ages 8 to 16 years featuring a variety of activities. The rates in 1958 were $60 a week.
There were two devastating floods in November and December of 1959 covering the property with six feet of water. They were isolated for three days and severe damage was done to the cabins and grounds. Sharpe hiked out in his hip boots with the water and ooze reaching the boot tops.
Sharpe said it was declared a disaster area and the Army Engineers officer stated money could be used to clear and repair the damage but chose not to do the work because they “couldn’t maintain it.”
Sharpe, after contacting seven agencies with no results, built a dike to keep the river in its bed and it held until the flood of 1976.
Land surrounded
Sharpe’s property is completely surrounded by U.S. Forest Service land and the forest service has a right-of-way through Garland. The county road ends at the property line and a forest service road abuts the land on the other side.
Whenever low water permitted, Sharpe moved debris and re-opened the normal river channel. He spent about $10,000 on the project.
In 1960, they were closed down because the mineral spring water wasn’t chlorinated. Sharpe was incredulous because the water was so medicinal.
“There wasn’t one incident of infection,” Sharpe said pointing out the many salts and other minerals in the water purified it without adding chlorine.
One spring of clear soda water is 44 degrees the year around; the second spring runs from 70 to 76 degrees any time of the year; and the third one 74 to 80 degrees.
Sharpe said the temptation of the soda springs was too much for a local tavern owner one Fourth of July. He made several trips to the cold spring for the “natural mixer.”
There are 22 minerals in the other two springs. The 150,000 gallon pool was filled in two and a half days from the output of one of the springs.
Dr. Scholatz of the University of Vienna told the Sharpes there were only two springs in the world that compared with Garland for therapeutic quality.
In the middle 1950s, a German woman, wife of a U.S. Army sergeant, was strolling around visiting and took a handful of water from the spring and tasted it. She dropped to her knees and started drinking and remarked that it was just like Baden Baden, Germany where she used to spend two months every year.
Even the animals knew of the medicinal quality of the springs. Sharpe told of a doe who brought her two fawns to the springs. She nuzzled them into the mud and rolled them around. They were allowed to dry and then they went off into the surrounding woods.
Fire destroys hotel
On January 26, 1961, Medora heard a loud rapping at the door of the hotel, and a logger asked if she knew the roof was on fire. He dashed upstairs to see if he could do anything but ran down saying it was too late.
They made three trips inside to gather belongings and that was it; the hotel was a total loss. It left the cabins intact but burned the dressing shed alongside the 105x40 pool and scorched the posts around it.
In December of 1965, they moved to Sultan and then the vandalism began.
Sharpe had gathered about 10 thousand feet of timber to rebuild one story of the hotel and it was washed away in the 1980 flood. He had stacked the fireplace bricks for eventual use and they gradually disappeared.
Deep feelings about springs
“It’s been my life,” Sharpe added. People have wanted to buy it or invest in it but they want control of the policy.
Sharpe said of his philosophy: “I have tried to feel what others are feeling, but I could not extend that to alcohol and it was not allowed because of its destructiveness.”
“I’ve given 32 years of my life to it, and I’d rather let my kids enjoy it than let someone else have it,” he said of the future.
An armed Vietnam veteran usually clad in jungle camouflage clothes is caretaker of the deserted Garland Mineral Springs now and the sign says “No trespassing, survivors will be prosecuted.”