Here's a look at the eight northern Utah hot springs resorts:Belmont Springs:
This 600-acre resort has some 50 hot ponds, plus a nine-hole golf course (opened 1975), 71 RV hookups and tent camping available. Scuba diving, lobster raising and hunting are also offered here. The resort is near the Malad River.
Memorial Day is the busiest of the year for Belmont, and July and August are its two busiest months.
It has three hot tubs open year-round, and the main swimming pool operates from April to November.
One of the hot pools has run-through water that is not recirculated.
The hot springs were discovered in pioneer times, and a pioneer trail passed nearby. Settlers even ended up segregating the hot pools, allowing Indians in one and only whites in another.
The tale of a large wagon being lost in one of the deep hot ponds persisted from pioneer times to a few years ago, when scuba drivers actually found it. The wagon has been removed.
Scuba diving here started seven years ago in the deepest hot pool. Bird hunting is offered in the fall.
Redclaw lobsters raised in some hot pools are sold worldwide.
The resort is off I-15 Exit 394, near Plymouth. Telephone: 1-435-458-3200.
Como Springs:
This resort had its beginnings in 1883 when Samuel Francis and Richard Fry purchased from the Union Pacific Railroad 80 acres of land containing geothermal springs with a temperature of 82 degrees.
The land was mainly used for raising livestock, and the warm water lake nearby was a favorite for fishing and swimming. The lake was named Lake Como, after Lake Como in northern Italy, the birthplace of Francis' wife.
Thomas Shore Wadsworth came to Morgan in 1889 and analyzed the water. He believed it had some health value and helped form a company to develop 40 of the acres as a resort.
It opened in August of 1889 with a swimming area, roller skating and dance pavilion. However, by 1894 economic conditions were poor, and the resort closed and fell into disrepair.
It was sold to the Heiner family in 1921. That June it was reopened by the Como Springs Resort Co. Expansion followed in later years.
Como Springs had something for everyone and was a centerpiece of Morgan. It offered swimming, golf, carnival rides, a loop train, roller skating, cabins, dancing and picnics.
Radio and newspaper ads in the 1960s kept attracting Salt Lake residents from 50 miles away. "34 acres of shade," stated summertime ads.
A fire on Aug. 25, 1980, destroyed the cafe, bowling alley and bar at the resort, causing some $200,000 in damage.
Subsequent flooding from the 1983-84 wet years, rising insurance costs and decreasing patronage in the 1980s all combined to shut down the resort.
Some believe Morgan never recovered when Como shut down.
"When Como shut down, it's like Morgan County shut down," Jan Kippen, director of economic development for Morgan city told the Deseret News in 1991. "People stopped coming."
The former dance/roller skating building was converted into a water bottling facility in 1990.
Crystal Springs:
The namesake of this resort was the crystals formed on rocks by the hot spring water as it gushed out of the mountainside north of Honeyville, Box Elder County. (Crystal Peak, elevation 7,770 feet, to the east also bears its name and so does Crystal Hollow below, where the springs originate.)
Indians who knew of the hot springs had some burial grounds near the site. Settlers also soon discovered them, and some of the workers on the original transcontinental railroad in the late 1860s used to come to relax in the waters. By 1901 it became an area resort.
Crystal is billed as the world's largest hot and cold water springs that run side by side -- just 50 feet apart.
Today the 52-degree cold spring fills a 300,000-gallon pool, while the 140-degree hot springs fill three hot tubs and a mineral pool and also flow down the 340-foot waterslide. Pool temperatures range from 85 degrees to 112 degrees. The waterslide is the main attraction for teens here. It runs year-round but only weekends in the winter.
The resort also offers fishing and camping.
June, July and August are Crystal's busiest months, but attendance was down slightly last year for the first season in many.
Prices are $5 for adults for pool use and $4 for seniors and kids, ages 3-11. Water slide/pool combination prices are $9 for all ages, but the minimum age for usage is 6. The resort opens at 10 a.m. daily.
Crystal Springs is off I-15 Exit 375. It has an Ogden/Kaysville phone number of 547-0777.
Rainbow Gardens:
Indians had used these hot springs at the mouth of Ogden Canyon long before the trappers came into the area.
The U.S. Geological Survey made the first analysis of the hot springs in 1872 and measured the temperature at 121 degrees.
Soon after, a miner named Johnson filed claim to the property and water rights. He sold them to Fred J. Kiesel, and the springs were used as free baths for many years.
The first resort here was called Ogden Canyon Sanitarium, and it operated from 1895 to 1927. It featured a hotel, dining rooms and dance hall but burned to the ground in 1927. A streetcar provided access to the resort.
An entrepreneur, A.V. Smith, bought the land in 1928 and rebuilt the resort in brick as El Monte Springs. A $100,000 swimming pool was added, and marathon dances were also very popular. However, the Great Depression closed the resort.
It lay dormant until 1942 when Ogden's "Cowboy Mayor," Harman W. Peery, purchased it. He named it Riverside Gardens, offering swimming and dancing.
The resort was turned over to his son-in-law, Robert W. King, and daughter, Rosanne Peery King, in 1946. They renamed it Rainbow Gardens and restored the Victorian spa. For 25 years, Rainbow offered swimming, indoor and out. An 18-lane bowling alley was also added.
The pool closed in 1970, and a gift shop was opened in the old ballroom. In 1974, the old indoor pool was also converted into a gift garden.
Now the bowling alley is also closed, but Rainbow has expanded to be the largest gift shop in the Intermountain area.
Saratoga:
Smoke rising out of the northwest end of Utah Lake on cold mornings probably first attracted Indians to this natural hot springs. For the first settlers, they were only a novelty, although many LDS Church baptisms took place there.
John C. Naile, an early settler originally owned the land and hoped for a cider business on the property. When that dream didn't materialize, he sold it to John Beck, who felt a spa would work there. He named it Beck's Saratoga Springs, after the famous resort in New York.
Located five miles southwest of Lehi, Saratoga had a boarding house and a brisk business by 1885. By 1891, 25 cents bought a bath in two large pools and/or six hot tubs.
A dancing floor and picnic tables were added in the center of the apple orchard by 1894. Lacking a railroad line, hay rides were the most popular way to reach Saratoga.
The resort had some unusual rules: Splashing or diving in the vicinity of ladies was prohibited, and soap was not allowed to be used in the plunges.
Frank Eastmond purchased Saratoga in 1928. By 1929, the hot pools and tubs were drained each night and refilled with fresh water to enhance the health conditions. Dancing, concerts, boxing, boating events and airplane stunts were also popular activities.
During the 1950s Eastmond turned over control of the resort to his sons. With increased competition from city-operated swimming pools, a 35-ride carnival with a Ferris wheel, Roll-o-plane and others, plus a children's wading pool was added.
A fire in the spring of 1968 caused $100,000 in damage and destroyed two historic resort buildings.
By 1978, Saratoga was less of a carnival and more into water slides, like the "Kamakazi." The rising waters of Utah Lake in 1983 produced rumors of the resort being under water and kept people away. Attendance continued to dwindle with competition from other water parks.
By 1995, Mick Eastmond sold the 30-acre resort to a group of investors who used it for part of a planned-unit community. By 1998, Saratoga Springs was Utah County's newest town with dozens of homes along the northwest tip of Utah Lake.
However, some people have continued to use the natural hot pools, though noise, crime and midnight parties have been a problem. Some envision a state park there someday.
Schneitter's Hot Pots/Homestead:
Swiss-born Simon J. Schneitter tried farming in Midway, Wasatch County, near Snake Creek in the 1870s. It was named for the 400 to 500 rattlesnakes that would be found coiled up each spring in the dry limestone craters near the hot pots back then.
Schneitter could only grow soggy alfalfa on the land, but soon neighbors urged him to allow bathing in the hot pots that were believed to have healing powers.
In 1886, he built the two-story Virginia House and a small swimming pool. Schnetter's Hot Pots offered swimming, bathing, a hotel and restaurant.
The resort was purchased by Ferrin W. Whitaker of California in 1954, and its name was changed to the Homestead. From there it eventually changed owners a few more times while diversifying into horseback riding, golf and other activities while retaining its quiet charm -- the closest thing Utah has to a Southern plantation.
Scuba diving is now offered in the old hot pot. Horseback riding, bike rentals and other amenities also prevail.
Utah Hot Springs:
This was started in 1880-1884 by Ranson H. Slater, near the Weber and Box Elder County line in Pleasant View. He had spotted the steam from the springs while on a train ride north to Montana and got the conductor to stop the train for him to see it close up. A Salt Lake horse doctor, he believed the hot waters had healing powers for horses. He soon believed it could help persons with diseases like diabetes, gout and rheumatism.
He leased the surrounding land and soon homesteaded it. He constructed bath houses and rock bathing pools.
The spring produced some 750,000 gallons of water a day at 144 degrees. He billed it as "The Great Cure of the West."
The resort featured a dining hall, hotel, dance hall and commissary. To the west was a race track, and for a short time there was even an airplane landing field on the alkali flats.
A railroad spur brought guests to the resort, hourly during peak seasons. At the turn of the century, the 20-mile roundtrip fare from Ogden was 50 cents, including admission to the hot springs, a bathing suit and towel.
Two fires, one in the 1920s and the other in 1930, destroyed the resort. Both times it was rebuilt. It had large indoor and outdoor pools in those days and was perhaps best known for its tall slippery slide at the outdoor pool.
The resort lasted until the late 1960s, when it closed and was torn down.
Although the resort is long gone and has been closed for almost three decades, the newest Utah state highway map still identifies its historic location as "Hot Springs."
Wasatch Warm Springs Plunge/Beck Hot Springs:
The hot springs were discovered even before the main group of pioneers entered the valley. On July 22, 1847, Thomas Bullock, reported finding them. He found a large rock at the foot of springs, as if purposely placed there to stand on. He reported the water being so hot that a person could not keep his finger in for more than 5 seconds.
Brigham Young said this about his initial hot springs visits in 1847:
"We came to a small lake also fed by warm springs. The largest and warmest spring bursts forth from the base of a perpendicular ledge of rock about 40 feet high and emits a volume of water sufficient for a mill."
He also said the water was hot enough to scald hogs.
This was Utah's first hot spring to be used by the pioneers at 840 N. 200 West. Its original bathhouse was a 15-by-30-foot structure and was dedicated on Nov. 27, 1850.
Salt Lake City had acquired the facility in 1872 but leased it out until 1916.
By one account, the original bathhouse was demolished. Another record said it was destroyed by fire in 1921. Either way, it made way for the current building, now housing the Children's Museum of Utah. The current structure opened in 1922 and cost $177,000.
It was then called the Warm Springs Municipal Bath but changed to Wasatch Warm Springs Plunge in 1932.
Many people believed the mineral waters were good for a person's health.
By 1947, the city discontinued the use of the natural sulphur spring water in favor of the safer chlorinated water. In fact, the sulphur in the water clogged many pipes that had to continually be replaced after only a few years.
Originally, the city allowed free swimming. However, with the resort so near a railroad that it attracted penniless drifters, a dime soon was charged.
Warm Springs was never a good moneymaker, but it offered free swimming to many underprivileged children.
By the 1970s the landmark was in danger. Although many Salt Lake residents had learned how to swim there, its concrete was now cracking and the roof was leaking. It closed in 1976 for good.