Salvation Peak Flag Picture of the Week

Castel Hot Springs Resort
Castle Hot Springs Resort – Originally built in 1896 by the owner of the Congress Mine -Frank Murphy – will reopen in October, so cash in your IRA and visit. I believe the tarp is covering the garden where the chief grows fresh vegetables for the restaurant.

It doesn’t much matter which way you travel on Castle Hot Springs Road, either clockwise or the other way, will get you to the historic retreat—the luxury resort for the rich and famous built in 1896. Your choice of travel depends on whether you want to drive through the mountains via Morristown or north from Lake Pleasant via Castle Creek. As a history buff, I prefer the original route, but I also live closer to the old railroad depot, and I’m too lazy to drive that distance to Lake Pleasant.

After I moved to Arizona, I heard stories of the ghost resort from friends, but I didn’t lay eyes on it for thirty years. After the last of my infamous station wagons was totaled while it was parked in the Sun City Boswell Hospital parking lot, we replaced it with my first SUV—Shadowfax. It was an Olds Bravada with ground clearance and four-wheel drive good enough to begin exploring back roads. One of my first outings was to Castle Hot Springs. As a film shooter back then, I didn’t have a perfect shot of the main house, so I didn’t bother taking any pictures.

There’s quite a bit of history that would make good stand-alone stories. Trivia like:

  • The hot spring found by Ft. Whipple Calvary soldiers tracking bandits.
  • Frank Murphy—the Congress Mine owner—bought the land, built the buildings, and then paid for the road.
  • The resort thrived during the first half of the 20th Century catering to the likes of the Roosevelts, Rockefellers, Vanderbilts, Wrigleys, Zane Gray, and Clark Gable (there had to be famous actresses that visited too, but I didn’t discover any of their names).
  • Murphy’s brother—when he was the territorial governor—turned the resort into Arizona’s Mar-A-Lago because winters were too cold in Prescott. And because Warren Murphy ran the state from here, Arizona’s first telephone was installed in the hall of the main building (I believed it survived the ’76 fire).
  • The temperature of the hot springs water is 12oº, which is the same as every Phoenix household during summer.

There’s another more interesting story, however. During the Second World War, the resort was dark because of rationing and shortages. After the war ended, Walter Rounsevel—then owner and general manager—leased the property to the US Military as a recovery and rehab facility for injured officers. One of those officers was a young lieutenant whose back was injured after a Japanese destroyer rammed his PT boat. The officer’s name was John F. Kennedy, and he spent several months recovering at Castle Hot Springs soaking in the springs, hiking trails, and golfing.

Salvation Peak Flag - For providing a place for injured servicemen to recuperate during World War II, the Castle Hot Springs Resort got special dispensation to fly an American Flag on Salvation Peak 24 hours a day.
Salvation Peak Flag – For providing a place for injured officers to recuperate during World War II, the Castle Hot Springs Resort got special dispensation to fly an American Flag on Salvation Peak 24 hours a day.

For its part in helping with the recovery of these servicemen, a special dispensation was given to Castle Hot Springs to fly an American flag 24 hours a day atop Salvation Peak. The flag is visible along the road before and after passing the resort, and I took several shots of it even though the sun was directly behind. My favorite version is this week’s featured image, and I call it, Salvation Peak Flag. Although it looks formidable, Salvation Peak is a smaller outcrop of Governors Peak which is located within the Hells Gate Wilderness area.

You can see a larger version of Salvation Peak Flag on its Web Page by clicking here. Be sure to come back next week when we’ll present our final photo that I made on my Castle Hot Spring Road outing.

Until next time — jw

AD Wash Gap Picture of the Week

This month’s photo topic is Castle Hot Springs Road—part of my long-term project of getting off the highways to explore Arizona’s back roads. My only restriction is that the roads are accessible by regular passenger cars. That’s because I don’t want to buy some dune buggy for the project (Actual Read: Queen Anne won’t let me buy one).

Since I live on its west, Castle Hot Springs Road starts in Morristown at its junction with U.S. Highway 60—Grand Avenue. It loops northeast from Arizona State Route 74—which we always called Carefree Highway, but I see that it’s officially listed as Morristown-New River Highway—past the Wickenburg Mountains into the Buckhorn Range before it returns to SR 74 via the bed of Castle Creek through the Hieroglyphic Mountains. Its length is less than thirty-five miles, and you can use a pick-up truck because most of it is well-graded and broad. Its roughest section is on the east side, the several miles between Lake Pleasant and the resort, because it travels in the creek bottom. So, if you want to drive your Lamborghini to the Castle Hot Springs resort, take the clockwise direction from Morristown.

As I’ve said through the years,  people build highways from roads, roads on trails, and trails from paths, so you shouldn’t be surprised that some of the Castle Hot Springs Road originated from the Wickenburg stagecoach route. “Why travel through the mountains when there’s a straight shot across the desert floor?” you may ask. Remember, stages needed water for both passengers and horses. The trip took all day at best. On the west side, some parts of the original stagecoach road remain, and you can drive them, but you need an ATV or Jeep for that.

AD Wash Gap
AD Wash Gap–The AD Wash drains the local mountain and runs by the road before turning into a narrow canyon and eventually becoming part of Castle Springs. You get a peek of the Bradshaw Mountains in the distance in the gap.

This week’s image comes from the road’s west section, a mile up the road from last week’s photo. On the north side of the mountain seen in that photo, Rincon Spring feeds a runoff called AD Wash—there’s no reference to what the name means, even in my trusty Arizona Place Names. The wash drains the local mountain and feeds the Layton tank before it turns and flows through a canyon between the hills. On the other side, AD Wash drops a couple hundred feet into Castle Creek.

When I shot this photo, I wanted to capture the saguaro grove against the canyon’s jagged edges in the late afternoon light. When I saw it on my computer, I was pleased with the paloverde in bloom and the blue streak running through the cloudy sky. For those unfamiliar with our Sonoran Desert, the saguaros in this photo range from 40 to 60 feet tall, and that should help set a sense of scale to what you’re viewing.

You can see a larger version of AD Wash Gap on its Web Page by clicking here. Be sure to return next week when we see another beautiful stop I made on my Castle Hot Spring Road outing.

Until next time — jw