The answer man: Remnants of Hot Lake's fire fighting legacy remain

Jul. 12—Hot Lake Springs, whose story as a hotel and a medical center dates back more than a century, has a history as rich as its mineral-filled water.

The site, not surprisingly, is filled with remnants of this past, including some that are keeping embers of a bygone firefighting era alive — two small hydrants that have been shut off for many decades.

The hydrants are survivors of an era when Hot Lake virtually had its own fire department. The system included a network of approximately 14 hydrants, all installed by Hot Lake's owners about a century ago. This put Hot Lake in select company since at the time most fire hydrant systems were typically found only in incorporated towns and cities.

"Hot Lake was like a small municipality," said Dick Roth, of Orting, Washington, a historian and author who has written six books about Union County's history.

The old hydrant system Roth is referring to was fed by an unorthodox and memorable source, a concrete reservoir on the south hill behind Hot Lake's buildings. Water was pumped into the structure, which held thousands of gallons of water that flowed downhill through wooden pipes wrapped by wire.

The reservoir stopped being used many decades ago but it is still buoyant in Roth's mind.

"I used to play up there," said Roth, who grew up at Hot Lake in the 1940s and 1950s when it was owned by his parents, A.J. and Fern Roth.

Roth said wildlife were also attracted to the reservoir.

"Once I had to pull a dead deer out of there," said Roth, who discussed Hot Lake's former firefighting system in late June during a presentation at Grande Hot Springs RV Resort.

Another pillar of Hot Lake's old firefighting system was its Ford-La Grande chemical hose truck. It was a Model TT fire engine manufactured in March of 1921.

The vehicle's features included two 38-gallon chemical tanks and two hose baskets. The chemical tanks held soda, water and acid in separate compartments. When they needed to be used the tanks would be turned upside down, mixing the soda and water with acid to create a compound used to extinguish blazes.

These tanks were dangerous once their chemicals were activated since this caused pressure to build within them. While this could result in exploding or burst tanks, Roth said he knows of no instances in which chemical tanks exploded at Hot Lake.

The fire of 1934

Roth believes that the Model TT fire engine was last used on May 7, 1934, when a disastrous fire hit Hot Lake, destroying about two thirds of its 650-foot-long building complex, which included a hospital. He said the fire may have been started by sparks created by uninsulated wires coming into contact with one another because of strong winds. Roth said the fire started in the attic of Hot Lake's main building.

Hot Lake had 13 patients at the time, all of whom escaped unharmed and evacuated to Grande Ronde Hospital.

Roth said the blaze exposed the shortcomings of the era's firefighting equipment.

"The fire consumed almost the entire wood portion of the complex and demonstrated the inadequacies of available early day firefighting equipment," Roth wrote in his book "The Hot Lake Story."

Roth said the two 38-gallon tanks Hot Lake's fire truck had were no match for the large fire, for they were drained early in the course of the fire.

Today, Hot Lake's old fire truck, which Roth drove in parades in the 1960s, is on display at the Eastern Oregon Fire Museum, La Grande. The fire engine, while at Hot Lake, was kept in a building also used as a pump house and a machine shop. The brick building still stands.

Roth, who has authored four books about Hot Lake's past, said doing historical research about this area is a pursuit he will never tire of.

"I enjoy finding facts and separating truth from mythology," he said. "Truth is always more interesting than fiction or fabrication."

Dick Mason is a reporter with The Observer primarily covering the communities of North Powder, Imbler, Island City and Union, education, Union County veterans programs and local history.