This Cache is part of the Helena, Montana GeoExpedition. The GeoExpedition spans the scenic Helena area from the heights of MacDonald Pass, through historic downtown gulch then south to Boulder and the Elkhorn Ghost Town. View GeoExpedition rules and DOWNLOAD a PASSPORT here.
Before the miners arrived here, the Indians considered all Hot Springs as a healing place. Boulder Hot Springs is located on the 1863 homestead of James C. Riley. James and his brother Peter, who had the adjoining homestead land, built a saloon and a crude bath house catering to local miners and ranchers. They did not furnish much comfort other than food and drink. Tenants slept on the floor, often providing their own blankets. In 1864, the Holt family spent their first winter in Montana at these springs. A romance soon bloomed between Sarah Holt and owner James Riley. They were married in 1865.
In 1888 the property was acquired by AC Quaintance, a Boulder Valley rancher. By 1890 the Northern Pacific railroad had been completed, and a depot was built about 600 yards from the hotel. CW Kerrick, a railroad contractor, leased the property from Quaintance for ten years and built a health resort around the springs. The new hotel was three stories high, and there were fifty-two rooms, each with a bath. A separate building served as the amusement hall. On the upper floor was a dance hall, with a stage for concerts and theatrical entertainment, and on the lower floor was a billiard room and bar. The large hall was decorated with evergreens and heads of wild animals of the Rockies.
The plunge was enclosed in a 32'x100' building and the water was kept at the proper temperature by mixing with the flow of a cold spring. Another bath house contained eight separate bathrooms and twelve sleeping rooms, the later for the use of patients who needed frequent bathing and immediate access to the baths. A well-equipped livery stable provided saddle horses or rigs suited to travel all four directions.
Term ranged from $2 to $3.50 per day, depending upon the facilities the guests desired. Weekly rates to boarders was about $15. Fourteen milk cows provided milk and cream for the dinning room, meat and poultry was purchased from area farmers, and early fruits and vegetables were shipped in from Salt Lake and California. Bread was baked daily, and they served Montana potatoes. Mr. Kerrick named his place The Hotel May, after his daughter. It officially opened June 10, 1891, with a grand ball, attended by 500 or 600 people. NOTE: This is the west wing of the present structure.
In 1908 Quaintance sold his interest in the hot springs to James Murray, a Butte millionaire miner and banker. His nephew James E. Murray (a US senator) became the next owner and briefly used the hotel as lodging for St. Joseph's Orphanage children after the Helena earthquake of 1935 made their location uninhabitable.
In 1940 CL "Pappy" Smith purchased the property and changed the name to Diamond S Ranch. In 1965, a joint-venture formed the Diamond S Ranch Hotel Corporation and began the endless repair work.
In 1985 owner Stuart Lewin changed the named back to Boulder Hot Springs and had it placed on the National Historic Register. In early 1990, the Hot Springs was purchased by Anne Wilson Schaef and it is now owned by a Limited Partnership. Under the present owners, lots of much needed renovation has taken place.