Postcards from the Rogue Valley

In the early 1900s, throngs of tourists would detrain at the Southern Pacific Railroad station at “A” Street in Ashland with bathing suits tucked in their bags. A 1915 Southern Pacific Railroad flyer heralded Ashland as a resort city on the “Shasta Route,” midway between Portland and San Francisco, with eight trains arriving and departing daily between the two cities.

“Ashland is noted for three things: beautiful environment, matchless climate, and wonderful mineral springs,” the poster read. But it was the mineral springs that most drew these tourists to Southern Oregon. “There are over forty known mineral springs in and about the city.” 

Rogue Valley’s Native Americans—the Shasta, Takelma, and Athabaskans—had long treasured the lithium filled water that percolated the volcanic mountains lining the valley. They called the mineral spring vapors “Hi-u-Skookum” medicine, or the breath of the Great Spirit, and soaked in the waters to ease sore muscles or skin rashes or calm troubled souls. “Lying on pine boughs within a circle of stones, they breathed the CO2 gases,” a local historian wrote, “then they would go to a skins-and-boughs enclosure for reviving, followed by chanting in a sweat lodge with a shaman.”

The White tourists disembarking at Ashland’s “A” Street in 1915 sought the same health benefits, but with different accoutrements. Some boarded another train, the Rogue River Valley RR, for the two-hour ride to Colestin Springs, tucked away at 3,800 feet in the Siskiyou Mountains. Passengers, baggage, and tents were offloaded onto a wooden platform. Since the small hotel could only house 25 guests, the rest (and as many as 100 families at a time) would pitch their tents underneath the conifers and stars. During the day, they “took the waters,” soaking away a range of ills, from sciatica to rheumatism to industrial life.

At the Buckhorn Mineral Springs, along the now famous Pacific Crest Trail, wellness seekers entered a lodge with fir floors, high ceilings, and single-pane windows on 120 acres deep in a canyon. “Sweet-tasting, bubbly waters rich in carbon dioxide” flowed from an artesian well, and a terra- cotta block hut housed six vapor-bath closets filled with carbon dioxide. Users sat in the chamber with their heads sticking out the top, unaware that breathing CO₂ in quantities could be fatal.

Local families preferred the Helman Hot Springs in the center of Ashland, developed by Ashland pioneer Abel Herman when word spread that the marsh on his property had healing powers. A dime would buy a day of pleasure.

Local dignitaries, meanwhile, dreamed of creating a world class mineral resort. Built in 1909, the wood-framed Ashland Mineral Springs Natatoriumfeatured two, large single-sex pools, a high dive, trapeze rings, a maple dance floor and seating for 500. Upon its opening, Ashland’s mayor exhorted residents to make of the day “a grand gala”—and called on every man, woman and child to devote at least one hour to visiting the “grand natatorium.”

The “Nat,” as it was called, was short-lived. Ten years after its gala opening, it quietly closed.

Another ten years and the local mineral springs boom had fizzled. Southern Pacific trains no longer ran through Ashland, the popularity of lithium water waned with Prohibition (hard liquor mitigated the rotten egg taste), and the rise of indoor plumbing doused the appeal of public soaking.  

In 1911, town officials had arranged to pipe the spring water into town so that it would be free to all, but the corrosion the CO₂left behind ended the practice. A stand of drinking fountains installed in the Ashland Plaza in 1927 remains, a curiosity with tourists daring each other to take a sip. A sudden jump in the barium content shut down the fountains for a month in 2016, but it turned out to be a false reading. 

Just outside town, though, the Lithia Springs Resort continues to prosper. There, theholy waters once treasured by the Shasta, Takelma, and Athabaskanstribes are tapped and piped into luxurious jetted tubs in twenty-six suites and bungalows.

At the bottom of the hill where we live, a two-minute drive from our house, Oregon’s first and original OLCC-licensed cannabis dispensary, Breeze Botanical, shares a commercial storefront with Planned Parenthood, a dentist office, and a liquor store. 

Essential oils, homeopathic remedies, and healing teas line the shelves in the front room. The cannabis products—of which there are several hundred—fill locked display tables in an anteroom, accessible after an ID check and a staff member unlocks the door. To the uninitiated, it can be overwhelming. “Navigating the dispensary will be significantly easier if you know how to talk with your budtender,” keytocannabis.com advises. “A good budtender should ask you as many questions as you ask them. Think of your interaction with a budtender as an inquisitive conversation—just as you would discuss the menu options with your server.”

When Oregon legalized pot in 2014, it was the second state in the country to do so, behind Colorado.

Few would have predicted what happened next. With a perfect climate for growing marijuana, Oregon growers produced bumper crops. Under state law, however, nonecould leave Oregon. That, coupled with a decision to not cap the number of licenses for growers in the state, created a surplus. A glut of legal marijuana has driven Oregon marijuana prices through the floor. 

Hemp, on the other hand, now has something marijuana doesn’t: federal approval.

A provision of the $867 billion farm bill Congress approved two months ago removes hemp from the list of federally controlled substances and treats the low-THC version of the cannabis plant like any other agricultural crop, an industry that has a footprint in 23 states.

The curious only have to look to Oregon to see the potential. Hemp production was effectively legalized here in 2015 as part of a pilot project authorized by that year’s farm bill. Since then, the number of licensed growers has climbed from 13 to 584, and hemp acreage has swelled from essentially zero to more than 11,000 acres. Only Colorado produces more hemp today.

Why hemp?  One of the fastest growing plants, hemp was one of the first plants to be spun into usable fiber 10,000 years ago. It can be refined into a variety of commercial items including paper, textiles, clothing, biodegradable plastics, paint, insulation, biofuel, food, and animal feed.Hemp is also the best source of cannabidiol, or CBD, a non-psychoactive compound that, like lithium water a century ago, has assumed magical proportions. 

FDA approval has yet to catch up with the buzz CBD oil—including salves and edibles—has produced. While studies have shown CBD to have anti-inflammatory, anti-pain and anti-psychotic properties, its testing in human trials is minimal, and it is only been approved for the treatment of pediatric seizures.

This has not stopped the stampede, from consumers and producers alike. In its purified distilled form, CBD oil commands thousands of dollars per kilogram, and farmers can make more than $100,000 an acre growing hemp plants to produce it. 

“Word on the street is everybody thinks hemp’s the new gold rush,” a local marijuana grower who had just added 12 acres of hemp to his farm told the Spokesman Review. “This is a business. You’ve got to adapt, and you’ve got to be a problem-solver.” 

Indeed, my 50-something hair stylist said yesterday that she and her hairdresser spouse were planting three acres of hemp on their farm just outside Ashland. It seemed a good investment in their old age: the cannabidiol would ease their aches and pains and the profits would sweeten their retirement.

According to the AARP, CBD has become especially popular among boomers. I left my visit to Breeze Botanicals joining the AARP statistics. A stiff shoulder from cross-country skiing led me to reach for a product, CBD Salve Hercules, which at $27 an ounce promised to help ease muscles spasms and tension. My budkeeper gave me his card and encouraged me to let him know how Hercules worked.

SUBSCRIBE

Add your name to the email “blast” announcing new posts. Please send your name and email address to: