Paso Robles’ Hot Springs

The main street that runs through Paso Robles is none other than Spring Street.  Aptly named for the hot springs that once were all over the Paso area, hot springs with their sulfur and mud made the region a popular destination many years ago.

One of the many reasons Paso Robles is now famous includes their mineral hot baths.

Known first by Native Americans

The springs have been a godsend and at times a hell all wrapped up in one.  The earliest times in Paso Robles two centuries ago found the padres at Mission San Miguel using the soothing springs.  The mission fathers were made aware of the thermal mineral springs by the local Native Americans (Salinan) who knew of the hot thermal waters.  From the City of Paso Robles website, the area was known as ‘California’s oldest watering place’.

Actually Paso Robles was originally called Agua Caliente – not to be confused with the desert resort casino near Palm Springs, California.  The name simply referred to the area as ‘hot water’ or ‘hot springs’.

In the earliest years of the area back in the mid-1800s, there really wasn’t anything in town but a log cabin built around a mineral hot springs near where present day City Hall sits.  When the town received a post office, shortly afterwards the city fathers changed the name to El Paso de Robles – ‘The Pass of the Oaks’ – a tree which the Central Coast has a bounty of.

Rich and famous

Bath houses such as the Paso Robles Inn were famous a century or more ago.

The restorative and healing affects the hot springs had made Paso Robles notable as a health resort for many decades and the bath houses were world renown including at the Paso Robles Inn.  The steaming caldron of water from deep in the Earth’s crust drew the wealthy and famous who made Paso Robles a trendy stop and even the Pittsburgh Pirates made the town their spring training grounds in the 20s and 30s.  Jan Paderewski, who was a famed pianist/composer, ended up making Paso Robles one of his homes – drawn by the healing affect of the mineral springs on his hands.  The notorious James brothers, Jesse and Frank, lived in Paso for a spell.

Situated about halfway between San Francisco and Los Angeles, the mineral springs were popular for travelers but as better transportation and other corridors emerged, the recognition waned along with the fact that some springs dried up during the 20th Century.  By the way, the city’s Municipal Pool on Oak and 28th Street was once home to a sulfur hot springs.

The 2003 San Simeon Earthquake reopened up a hot springs hole in Downtown Paso.

Ranches and orchards sprang up everywhere in the ‘North County’ region of San Luis Obispo County where Paso Robles sits and of course in the latter stages of the 1900s, vineyards brought a new fame and fortune to the area.  An earthquake in 2003 reconnected the hot springs to the surface in some areas while bringing unwanted fissures that brought a terrible smell in town that wasn’t remedied until a couple years ago.  Still, with the new reputation of the region as a destination for vacationers, these thermal and soothing waters may have brought the mineral hot baths back into prominence of sorts.

Paso has a few local businesses that offer mineral hot springs including the famous Paso Robles Inn in Downtown, the River Oaks Hot Springs Spa on the north part of town and the eclectic and natural Franklin Hot Springs southeast of the city.

River Oaks Hot Springs Spa offers wondrously relaxing hot tubs with great views.

As the world’s number one wine region and a popular traveling destination, the history and background of Paso Robles can be lost sometimes.  However, the cities rich past is still present and something tells me that more hot springs will pop up before long, bringing their popularity in the region full circle from centuries ago.

Sources and photos in part are thanks to River Oaks Hot Springs Spa, Paso Robles Inn and the City of Paso Robles.

Cheers,

Daryle W. Hier

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http://pasowinebarrels.com/

Happy St. Patrick’s Day

Decorative Wine Barrel with green bands.

March 17th is always designated as St. Patrick’s Day and is one of the more fun holidays.  We here at Paso Wine Barrels have Irish in our background so we thought we’d just give a quick nod to the Irish and everything it means to be Irish.

As you may have guessed, I like history and was going to go into a long dissertation, but decided that was for another time.  I will say the term ‘Wearin O The Green’ simply comes from the color of the beloved shamrock and the fact that Irish took to wearing green as a designation through a ballad from a few centuries back.

So when you see the special like we are running today, now you know where the saying comes from.  And really, don’t all of us have a wee bit of Irish in us.

Gartha,

Daryle W. Hier

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http://pasowinebarrels.com/

1889 California – The Year Paso Robles Incorporated

During the 19th Century, the city of Paso Robles was born on March 11, 1889.  This year represents the 125th birthday of this still somewhat out-of-the-way town on the California Central Coast.  However, what was the Golden State like during its, at least to some extent, formative years as a state?

Originally part of Spain and then Mexico (and even Russia), the state became a territory of the United States after the Mexican-American War, which originated because Texas was admitted to the union.  Closely following the Lone Star State’s lead, California was established as a state and admitted into the union in 1850, making it the second largest state after Texas.  California once was much larger and included Nevada, most of Arizona and parts of Utah.  This all happened about the same time as the California Gold Rush, ballooning the state’s population.

Boom

Railroads would take the place of stagecoaches and create much easier access to and from California

Once railroads were established in the 1860s, travel to and from other states and the East Coast became more regular and helped business grow in California creating a land boom of sorts.  Soon farming became popular once farmers realized how many valleys and fertile lands there were throughout the state.  Included was the Paso Robles region due in part to the Salinas River and its huge underground water basin.

Leading up to Paso Robles’ incorporation (which is the second oldest city in the county), the 1880s had been a time of economic boom and industrial development helped by electrical power and rail expansion.  Machine shops were created along with direct and alternate current motors (AC and DC) expanding, plus paper became more easily made.  Also, the steam turbine was invented, the inflatable tire was developed and of course Karl Benz patented the first automobile.

Outlaws Jesse and Frank James frequented Paso Robles

With this rapid growth, the Wild West was being tamed (Jesse James once lived here) and to say the least, the 1880s were quite a period of change.  However, due note California did have a dip in its economy towards the late 1880s after the bubble that was created during the land rush.  By the way, the following year in 1890, 140 miles to the east of Paso Robles, the Sequoia National Forest was established – the first national forest in California.

What was happening

On New Year’s Day 1889, there was a full solar eclipse.  When Paso Robles became an official city that year, during the summer and less than a 100 miles to the east, most of the town of Bakersfield burned down.  To the south, in what some call the Great Fire, in early fall nearly a million acres in Orange and San Diego counties were torched in Southern California.  Just to the south of California in Baja, Mexico, they had their own short lived Gold Rush, which had less to do with gold and more to do with bold rumors and talk than was real – some things never change.

The President of the United States in 1889 was the newly elected Benjamin Harrison who was the grandson of the ninth President of the U.S., William Henry Harrison (‘Old Tippecanoe’) who was in office for all of one month before dying from pneumonia.  A Republican who believed in protectionism using high tariffs, along with broad new powers to stop monopolies, Harrison pursued civil rights and an increase in national forests.

The Governor of California was Robert Waterman – also a Republican.  Originally a New Yorker before moving as a young teenager to Illinois, he came to California like many, looking for riches in prospecting.  No luck at finding precious metals, he returned to Illinois where he became a successful farmer along with being a newspaper publisher.  A second visit to California would be much more triumphant for Waterman and finally propelled him into the governorship.  Known for his straight-forwardness, he believed the state should be run like a business.  Waterman served one four-year term from 1887 to 1891 dying a few months after he departed office.

Marie Bauer High School circa 1892 in Paso Robles

Paso Robles sits nearly halfway between the two giant metropolitan cities of San Francisco and Los Angeles.  Back in 1889 they weren’t nearly as big as they are now with L.A. being less than 50,000 in population.  San Francisco was the major city in the Western U.S. and by 1889 was already approaching 300,000.  At that same time, the population of Paso Robles was maybe 500 folks.  It should be noted that the first thing Paso Robles did as a city was build a jail – it was still the Wild West after all.  Paso Robles would build the first high school in San Luis Obispo County just a few short years after incorporating with the Marie Bauer School.

Although meteorological records weren’t accurately kept in Paso Robles until a couple years later, 1889 ended with heavy rains, especially in the northern part of the state as a hard winter had set in with the Sierras seeing terrific amounts of snow that season.

Changes

Ranches and orchards once dotted the landscape as much as vineyards do now.

Paso Robles was known for little more than a stop on the trail with hot springs.  Cattle ranches and almond orchards dominated the area.  The county was the milk producing capitol of the state during this era and also the area was known as Almond City.  Sheep used to be common place in this region but by 1889, agriculture was starting to become more popular just as it was around the state.  Areas east of Templeton and Paso Robles were being cultivated with grain fields and fruit orchards due to the great composite of fertile soil.  Times were changing.

The towns of Santa Margarita and Templeton both surfaced during this time as well resulting in a time in history when the entire North County of San Luis Obispo County had sprung up during 1889.

Paso Robles would go through many more changes over the course of the next 125 years as did the state as a whole with California emerging as the most populous state in the U.S. with an economy that would rank as the eighth largest in the world.  And of course, Paso Robles is now known as the world’s number one wine region.

A lot has changed over the last century and a quarter in Paso Robles and California.

Sources – University of San Diego, Baja Fever, Los Angeles Times, Sacramento Bee, State of California

Cheers,

Daryle W. Hier

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http://pasowinebarrels.com/

Wine Barrel History

Since our business is the beautification of old, used wine barrels, I thought it would be interesting to know some history on just how, when and where the old wooden wine casks started.

Amphora was used for wine before wooden cask came along.

Early accounts show there is not an exact time the wooden barrel began to be used but history indicates that it goes back to the era of the Roman Empire.  Before that time, the common container for storage, fermentation and aging was the Amphora.  The Amphora dates back to the Lithos’ (new stone-age) era and were ceramic vases of various sizes, with handles on a narrow neck which stood about two to four feet from the floor usually next to a table.  Larger Amphoras could hold about 100 pounds of liquid, usually wine.  Sealed with pine resin, they were commonly painted with beautiful colors, sometimes by famous artists and painters. The vessels were generally owned by the elite.

History reads that Herodotus used palm-wood casks to ship Armenian wine to Babylon in Mesopotamia but the barrel as we know it today was most likely developed by the Celts. Their technique of bending planks through heating, in the process of making hulls for boats, evolved into a method of building wooden barrels.  It seems the shape of the barrel, a cylinder, fat in the center and drawn in on the ends with flat top and bottom aided in moving heavy items due to leverage.

18th Century cooperage

Wooden barrels for wine making are made of either French common oak, White oak or American white oak.  Generally there are two sizes:  “Bordeaux type “at 59 US gallons (225 liters) and “Cognac type” at 79 US gallons (300 liters).  The maker of wooden barrels is called a cooper and the plant is called a cooperage.

The history of the wooden barrel seems to be based on transportation; however, the primary importance of the cask today is fermentation, aging and storage.  Vanilla and wood tannins from the oak conjure up flavor for the wine.  Aging time in the barrel is very important; the maturity for different wines can be as much as several years depending on the winemaker and varietal of grape.

When the aging process is complete, grapes are processed and wine is bottled, leaving empty barrels which hopefully are at there end.  Paso Wine Barrels will then rescue them and craftily process each entire cask into a beautiful piece of furniture to be enjoyed for years to come.  We hope you have enjoyed this piece of barrel history.  Save the barrels and …

…Salootie Patootie

Ron Hier

http://pasowinebarrels.com/