Husted Directory Company’s Oakland City Directory of 1921 list M.J. Laymance as a real estate dealer, first as a salesman with E.D. Block & Company, with brother Walter at Pearson & Laymance in 1883-1884, together as M.J. Laymance & Company beginning in 1887, and thereafter with other family members (William J. Laymance, Edward E. Laymance, Ernest E. Laymance, and Edgar E. Laymance) through a succession of real estate, mining, and investment companies. Census data researched by Paul Peterson leads him to conclude that Millard J., J. Walter, William J. and Ernest E. were all brothers, and that Edgar E. was married to Minnie W. Laymance. When J. Walter Laymance campaigned for the office of Alameda County Recorder, in 1890, The Morning Times in praising his talents said “he is, emphatically, ‘one of the boys’.”
After a gap in the ownership records, during which Lizzie Beeby lost possession of Howard Springs, Minnie W. and Edgar E. Laymance on October 29, 1907, recorded the sale of Howard Springs to the Howard Springs Company. J.W. Laymance, E.E. Laymance (nonspecific as to which E.E.), and J.J. Scrivner had filed the articles of incorporation for Howard Springs Company on August 17, 1907. Already they were advertising the resort, and they may have had possession and operated the resort in earlier years; J.W. Laymance and two other San Francisco/Oakland businessmen had created the “Seigler Mining Company” on March 29 of 1906. Part 4: Into the 20th Century In 1896 Mrs. R.J. (Lizzie) Beeby purchased Howard Springs from Charles Scott, taking on the role of official Putah postmaster. Three photographs illustrating an advertising brochure show the resort then including an L-shaped lodge (lacking the east wing) and two-story annex, with landscaped springs, small wood-framed bathhouses, and a boardwalk to keep clients above the marshy area near the springs. Already the resort could boast of a “telephone on the premises.” But in two years Mrs. Beeby was filing to protect Howard Springs from her creditors, and after 1898 a gap in the property ownership appears in county records. By then Sunset Magazine recognized Howard Springs as one of Lake County’s “summer resorts,” along with Harbin, Anderson, Adams, Hoberg’s, Astorg, Glenbrook, Bonanza, Seigler, Bartlett, Carlsbad, and Highland Springs, all but Bartlett reached by stage from Calistoga with an overnight stop either at Calistoga or Napa. In 1900 R.F. Dockery, owner of nearby Bonanza Springs, was appointed postmaster at Howard Springs, but he declined the position. After a run of nine years (1892-1900) the official U.S. Putah Post Office at Howard Springs was closed, although the resort continued to cancel mail under the name “Howard Springs” until at least 1904, with official service from Lower Lake. In the twentieth century Howard Springs was owned primarily by only four parties, the first of which was the Laymance family. M.J. Laymance & Company was a successful Oakland real estate firm owned by Millard J. and John Walter Laymance, responsible among other things for subdividing 120 acres into lots for the town of Windsor in Sonoma County in the late 1880s. Millard J. Laymance came to California in about 1875 from Georgia, making money first in vineyards in Sonoma County, then raising cattle in Nevada and investing in gold and copper mines, returning to California to raise wheat in the San Joaquin County, and finally turning to real estate. In keeping with other San Francisco and Seattle businessmen, he got financially involved in the 1897 Klondike gold strike in the Yukon Territory. For over 40 years local business directories beginning with Bishop’s Oakland Directory of 1881-82 to Polk-Husted Directory Company’s Oakland City Directory of 1921 list M.J. Laymance as a real estate dealer, first as a salesman with E.D. Block & Company, with brother Walter at Pearson & Laymance in 1883-1884, together as M.J. Laymance & Company beginning in 1887, and thereafter with other family members (William J. Laymance, Edward E. Laymance, Ernest E. Laymance, and Edgar E. Laymance) through a succession of real estate, mining, and investment companies. Census data researched by Paul Peterson leads him to conclude that Millard J., J. Walter, William J. and Ernest E. were all brothers, and that Edgar E. was married to Minnie W. Laymance. When J. Walter Laymance campaigned for the office of Alameda County Recorder, in 1890, The Morning Times in praising his talents said “he is, emphatically, ‘one of the boys’.” After a gap in the ownership records, during which Lizzie Beeby lost possession of Howard Springs, Minnie W. and Edgar E. Laymance on October 29, 1907, recorded the sale of Howard Springs to the Howard Springs Company. J.W. Laymance, E.E. Laymance (nonspecific as to which E.E.), and J.J. Scrivner had filed the articles of incorporation for Howard Springs Company on August 17, 1907. Already they were advertising the resort, and they may have had possession and operated the resort in earlier years; J.W. Laymance and two other San Francisco/Oakland businessmen had created the “Seigler Mining Company” on March 29 of 1906. Part 5: 1909-1910 - the Laymance Years In 1909 geologist Gerald A. Waring conducted a comprehensive inventory of California’s springs. By then the resort included bathhouses over the springs, the hotel now with the east wing added on a concrete foundation, the hotel annex, “four or five small cottages,” and a barn and stockyard to the east in what would become the east side of Big Canyon Road. The 1909 telephone directory lists Howard Springs as a toll station linked to the main exchange in Lakeport. Waring mentions that some of the Howard Springs water had been bottled for sale “several years prior to 1909.” The specific waters bottled were from the Lithia, Eureka, and Bohemian springs, as they were called. Mauldin reiterates parts of “Antique Bottles of Lake County” by Helen Rickabaugh, describing a pale aqua-color bottle from Howard Springs that was embossed with the word “Lythia” or “Lythium,” “thought to be the great cure-all...even if you’d have to drink a bathtubful to get a measurable amount.” The curative properties were so emphasized that Dr. F.C.S. Sanders of Cambridge University would say that “from a purely medicinal point of view [Howard Springs] is one of the most valuable springs in the State.” The legal record of ownership and management of Howard Springs during the Laymance years is complicated, as might be expected of absentee owners from a big-city family real estate firm. In 1909 Howard Springs Company sold the resort to C.M. Miller -- likely a business associate. Miller turned around two months later and sold the property back to J.W. Laymance, though the sale wasn’t recorded for another three years, on March 18, 1912. It wasn’t soon enough to exclude Miller from the list of defendants in an October 12, 1912, lawsuit brought against him and J. Walter Laymance et al. by Kate King, the widow of Charles H. King. King was a fellow Oakland businessman who must have died in 1910 or 1911. An October 28, 1912, affidavit indicates that Miller and the Laymances had an overdue mortgage with King totaling -- with fees, taxes, and interest -- $11,460. Lake County duly sold Howard Springs at auction for $11,880.26 to J.H. King, recorded December 22, 1913, who that same day sold it back to M.J. Laymance and William J. Laymance. The Laymances added two elements to the management of Howard Springs: leasing directly to operators (though earlier Philip Seiben had a lessee for one year), and advertising on postcards. Their advertisement in Husted’s 1908 Oakland/Berkeley/Alameda directory lists “Miss C. Wheeler” as proprietor and J.W. Wheeler as manager. The Laymances advertisement in the 1907 directory doesn’t list the Wheelers, and The Lake County Bee of December 1, 1910, reports J. Walter Laymance at the resort to make improvements between lessees, so the Wheelers must have managed only for the 1907 and 1908 seasons. R.J. Yates (identified as a 14-year old child in the 1870 Lower Lake census) was leasing and operating the resort by 1912 -- he took out an advertisement in the May 2, 1912 San Francisco Examiner, and a postcard in the collection of Irl Rickabaugh, postmarked 1912, shows people gathered on the lodge veranda around a sign identifying Yates as proprietor. Yates was also described as lessee and operator in 1915; in 1920 the California State Mineralogist identified Charles E. Stark as the lessee. In addition to advertising in the Oakland telephone book and on cartoon fliers, J.W. Laymance enlisted the photo-advertising skills of San Francisco’s Edward H. Mitchell Company, which specialized in turning clients’ photographs into commercial postcards. Mitchell’s postcards and other photographs made available in this research form a sample of about 28 images belonging to the period between 1907 and the fire 15 or so years later that destroyed most of the resort’s buildings. Aside from Waring’s 1909 photograph, only four photographs from this period are dated -- by postmarks, which post-date the image. Two others identify Miss C. Wheeler as proprietress, dating the views to between 1908 and 1909, and in both views a number of buildings appear. The Laymance enterprise at Howard Springs was a well-developed complex with two large lodge buildings, cabins, baths, tent platforms, and a stable. The lodge and lodge annex appear to have shiplap siding, while the bath houses and cabins sported both shiplap and board-and-batten siding. Roofs were protected with wood shingles. Most of the porches were roofed and had railings. The lithium springs sported a quaint gazebo. Rows of plain canvas wall tents and sometimes larger striped hipped-roof tents were erected for guests on platforms where Cabins 6-9 and Cabins 27 and 28 now stand. A well-manicured croquet court was maintained as part of the recreational facilities. Postcards show a long shaded arbor leading from the hotel to the bathhouses. New development by Laymance was forecast for the winter of 1910-11, according to a news item in the December 1, 1910, edition of The Lake County Bee. But photographs reveal little resort evolution. The borax spring bathhouse was replaced, and some landscaping took place. |
Part 6: 1921 -1929 - The Fire
On May 11, 1921, after at least 15 years of Laymance family ownership, M.J. and William J. Laymance sold Howard Springs to Harold W. Jewett. The 1921 Oakland City Directory, not surprisingly, identifies H.W. Jewett as Secretary-Treasurer of the Laymance Oil Company. The 1920 and 1930 censuses for Alameda County identify him as a real estate broker. His wife was Millard J. and Mary Louise Laymance’s third child, Grace Mildred. So it could be said that the Laymance family ownership of Howard Springs carried beyond 1921. But probably not long after Harold W. Jewett took possession of the resort, the property passed out of his hands. The end of the extended Laymance family’s interest in Howard Springs is as cloudy as the beginning, as no sale from Jewett to a subsequent owner turned up in legal documents. The Report of the State Mineralogist for 1929 gives the owner of Howard Springs as Mary Claney, “c/o G.J. Hatfield” of San Francisco, with J.P. Francisco operating the resort. Jesse P. Francisco (know legally and publicly as J.P. Francisco except for one mention in a December 15, 1926, Lake County Bee article titled “Resort Owners Seek New Road to Lower Lake”), took out a Howard Springs advertisement in the Middletown Times Star as early as July 26, 1926; a 1928 pamphlet in the possession of Irl Rickabaugh titled “Redwood Empire” as well as advertisements scattered in Lake County newspapers indicate that he operated the resort until his 1945 sale to the Pappas brothers. No records yet prove it, but H.W. Jewett may have sold the 160-acre resort to Mary I. Clancy, who in turn sold it to George J. Hatfield in two parcels and two transactions while the Franciscos were already operating the resort. On October 26, 1929, Clancy sold the western 40-acre parcel to Hatfield. Then on December 5, 1929, J.P. and Cora Francisco became indebted -- or were already indebted -- to Hatfield for the remaining 120 acres of the resort. In between was an event that irreversibly changed the Howard Springs resort -- a massive fire. The flimsy wood frame towns, mines, and resorts of the late 1800s and early 1900s were susceptible to destruction by fire, and Lake County’s early newspapers report many large fires that threatened remote facilities. On August 15, 1926, a brush fire burned through the Seigler Valley and upper Big Canyon, sparing Ettawa, Seigler, and -- by “a miracle” -- Howard Springs, but destroying the power plant, bathhouse, and some cabins at Bonanza Spring. On Sunday, November 10, 1929, Howard Springs wasn’t so fortunate, and a fire starting in the lodge ultimately spread and destroyed every building at the resort but for two cabins and evidently two bathhouses. J.P. Francisco was burned attempting to put out the fire, but that didn’t discourage him and his wife Cora Francisco from taking out a loan to rebuild the resort less than a month later. Part of the loss was insured for $11,500. Their December 5, 1929, mortgage agreement required them to erect and furnish a new main lodge and 15 tent platforms and tents by June 1, 1930, erect and furnish 10 frame cottages by August 31, 1931, and build ten more bedroom units either as cabins or lodge rooms by August 31, 1932. Of the surviving buildings from the fire -- “two small cottages on the hill near the main hotel property” -- one was the cabin with the shed-roofed porch central to so many earlier resort photographs. The other was probably the duplex now known as Cabin 29/30. The Franciscos began the reconstruction with a large two-story 28’ x 72’ lodge and an appended shed-roofed kitchen about 12’ x 24’ in size. The site selected for the new lodge was about 100’ southwest of the old one. Wraparound first- and second-story porches were soon completed on the east, north, and west sides of the new lodge. With the devastating fire fresh in mind, the mortgage stipulated that the hotel have a fireproof asbestos roof and cement shingles. The two cabins that survived the fire were kept in service, and a suite of small 12’ x 14’ cabins -- some as duplexes -- were built, all of which remain in 2007. Most of the bathhouses and pools were redeveloped, using concrete. Though the newspaper accounts don’t mention the old Magnesia bath house surviving the fire, photographs showing the building’s distinctive hipped roof, decorative ridge sign, and door and window configuration span the pre-and post-fire period. Part 7: The Pappas Brothers By the 1920s the horse-drawn stages of earlier decades had been replaced by automobiles, and Lake County’s resorts began catering to “tourists.” Regular bus service was arranged, but families often arrived at Howard Springs in their own cars. Accordingly, the resort made parking spaces to accommodate these newly mobile guests, and a gas station with a round sign on its roof ridge was built to the east about where Big Canyon Road is now (at that time the Big Canyon Road bent west, closer to the lodge). In 1936 J.P. and Cora Francisco mortgaged Howard Springs for $15,500. A January, 1937, newspaper clipping reproduced mentions J.P. Francisco, the “proprietor of Howard Hot Springs,” being rushed to the hospital for appendicitis. He continued to advertise the resort locally. On October 6, 1945, the Franciscos paid off their 1936 mortgage to Bank of America. On that same day they recorded the sale of the property to the Pappas family. An entry in a 1948 California Journal of Mines and Geology article reports the operator of Howard Springs as J.P. Francisco, but it was obsolete information. The Pappas brothers -- George, Bill (with wife Dina), and James (with wife Julia) -- were to own and operate Howard Springs until the resort finally closed to the public after the 1970 season. According to Elio Giusti, his uncle George Pappas had been a regular guest at the springs since about 1918 -- during the Laymance ownership. One of the first improvements the Pappas brothers made was to tear down and replace the iron sulphur bathhouse, then the borax bathhouse. The east half of the old hip-roofed Magnesia bathhouse was cut off in two pieces and removed to the pasture east of Big Canyon Road, and the remainder was incorporated into a new narrow building used as a snack shack and -- later with a flat roof bounded by a 2” metal pipe railing -- as a sun deck. The brothers added a 29’ x 48’ recreation room on the east side of the lodge, and enlarged the kitchen to span the whole south side of the building. The shed-roofed cabin that survived the 1929 fire was removed, and by 1948 more cabins -- singles, duplexes, fourplexes, and two fiveplexes had been built, creating a total of 64 units. Much of the resort was landscaped with long rock walls. The Pappas brothers continued the tradition established by M.J. Laymance, advertising the business with postcards showing various views of the resort. By that time color cards were cheaply available, compared to the black-and-white cards of earlier decades. They prepared a double-sided, folded brochure, with headings in red ink and a bright blue border, to tout the benefits of a dozen of Howard Springs’ mineralogically varied springs. But the recreation opportunities -- “shuffle boards, ping pong, croquet, movies, wonderful hiking grounds” -- appealed mostly to aging clients. The resort must have had an Old World air to it, as the Pappas brothers’ Greek heritage attracted a clientele containing 40% Greek immigrant families, and Italian-speaking Dina Pappas attracted another 40% that were Italian. Accordingly, the concrete foundation of the old lodge’s east wing, destroyed by the 1929 fire and left in place, was developed into a bocci ball court and later a croquet court. Part 8: Recent History as a Health Resort Nearby resorts of the time had other attractions. Bonanza Springs had a liquor license, which partly compensated for its lack of other facilities. Seigler Springs had live dance music nightly, according to Darlene Hecomovich, whose parents -- Dorothy and Ernie Olsen -- owned the resort for decades. Seigler’s also had a “party boat” available for Clear Lake excursions on the weekends, and occasional “swimming suit beauty contests.” Hoberg’s resort on nearby Cobb Mountain was renowned in northern California for its dance parties, with two bars and big name swing bands like Benny Goodman, Tommy Dorsey, Sal Carson, and Xaiver Cugat. To accommodate the many guests at Hoberg’s, that resort’s management purchased from Louis Bouscal the only land in the vicinity flat enough and long enough to build an airstrip, located in Seigler Valley one-half mile northeast of Howard Springs, Bonanza Springs, and Seigler Springs. In the early 1870s the land had been developed as a racetrack. According to Elio Giusti, the Pappas brothers agreed to have the west half of their hill on the east side of Big Canyon Road shaved down with a bulldozer, to provide better clearance for takeoffs and landings. The airport opening in August of 1946 was a gala event, with a DC-3 operated by Western Airlines flying in for the barbecue, attended by a dozen Seigler Springs waitresses. But the Pappas brothers and their modest facilities at Howard Springs catered to clients interested in improving their health rather than challenging it drinking and dancing at Hoberg’s, and they would have been hard-pressed to compete directly with the other resorts. Instead of big bands they offered bingo. In the 1950s the three main resorts in the region were Seigler Springs, Hoberg’s, and Forest Lake (on nearby Seigler, Boggs, and Cobb Mountains, respectively) according to Bill Hecomovich, who (between 1971 and 1974) joined long-time owners Gertrude Hoberg and Frank Bleuss in operating Hoberg’s and whose wife Darlene (Olsen) grew up at Seigler Springs. These three resorts developed cooperative arrangements allowing a guest at one to use the facilities of the other, so that together they could accommodate thousands of people from San Francisco, Sacramento, and elsewhere. Meanwhile, business waned at Howard Springs, as it did at nearby Harbin and Seigler Springs, and for some of the same reasons. The relaxing atmosphere and medicinal waters attracted an increasingly older crowd, whereas younger customers wanted to dance and address their physical problems with new drugs and medical technologies. Elio Giusti attributes the decline to new highways halving the driving time from the Bay area to Lake Tahoe, while David Neft cites the advent of recreational vehicles (RVs), commercial flights to Hawaii, and a changing concept of “vacation.” In 1954, according to Elio Giusti, George Pappas died. By then the resort had been developed to include all the buildings present in 2007. James Pappas died in 1969. The resort didn’t reopen in the spring of 1971, and in 1973 Elio Giusti purchased a half-interest in the mothballed property from his mother and step-father -- Dina and Bill Pappas. In 1976 he purchased the remainder from his step-uncles’ heirs. The property consisted of 318 acres and the lodge, bathhouses, 64 cabins, and a large modern house on the east side of Big Canyon Road. Between about 1975 and 1983 Republic Geothermal, Inc. held leases for geothermal exploration on 1,300 acres including the Howard Springs property. An environmental impact statement was prepared by Enviros of Los Altos, California, and filed with the Lake County Planning Department. The exploratory drilling conducted by Republic Geothermal constitutes the most recent historic activity of importance from a land use perspective. Actual drilling locations deviated considerably from those identified in the Enviros report, and two 500’ test wells (for shallow-depth temperature information) were placed on Howard Springs property: one on the bluff (southwest of the present resort buildings) where the multipurpose complex is planned, and one east of Big Canyon Road where the ecovillage is proposed. LAST UPDATED ON WEDNESDAY, 23 JANUARY 2013 09:45 Part 8: Recent History as a Health Resort Nearby resorts of the time had other attractions. Bonanza Springs had a liquor license, which partly compensated for its lack of other facilities. Seigler Springs had live dance music nightly, according to Darlene Hecomovich, whose parents -- Dorothy and Ernie Olsen -- owned the resort for decades. Seigler’s also had a “party boat” available for Clear Lake excursions on the weekends, and occasional “swimming suit beauty contests.” Hoberg’s resort on nearby Cobb Mountain was renowned in northern California for its dance parties, with two bars and big name swing bands like Benny Goodman, Tommy Dorsey, Sal Carson, and Xaiver Cugat. To accommodate the many guests at Hoberg’s, that resort’s management purchased from Louis Bouscal the only land in the vicinity flat enough and long enough to build an airstrip, located in Seigler Valley one-half mile northeast of Howard Springs, Bonanza Springs, and Seigler Springs. In the early 1870s the land had been developed as a racetrack. According to Elio Giusti, the Pappas brothers agreed to have the west half of their hill on the east side of Big Canyon Road shaved down with a bulldozer, to provide better clearance for takeoffs and landings. The airport opening in August of 1946 was a gala event, with a DC-3 operated by Western Airlines flying in for the barbecue, attended by a dozen Seigler Springs waitresses. But the Pappas brothers and their modest facilities at Howard Springs catered to clients interested in improving their health rather than challenging it drinking and dancing at Hoberg’s, and they would have been hard-pressed to compete directly with the other resorts. Instead of big bands they offered bingo. In the 1950s the three main resorts in the region were Seigler Springs, Hoberg’s, and Forest Lake (on nearby Seigler, Boggs, and Cobb Mountains, respectively) according to Bill Hecomovich, who (between 1971 and 1974) joined long-time owners Gertrude Hoberg and Frank Bleuss in operating Hoberg’s and whose wife Darlene (Olsen) grew up at Seigler Springs. These three resorts developed cooperative arrangements allowing a guest at one to use the facilities of the other, so that together they could accommodate thousands of people from San Francisco, Sacramento, and elsewhere. Meanwhile, business waned at Howard Springs, as it did at nearby Harbin and Seigler Springs, and for some of the same reasons. The relaxing atmosphere and medicinal waters attracted an increasingly older crowd, whereas younger customers wanted to dance and address their physical problems with new drugs and medical technologies. Elio Giusti attributes the decline to new highways halving the driving time from the Bay area to Lake Tahoe, while David Neft cites the advent of recreational vehicles (RVs), commercial flights to Hawaii, and a changing concept of “vacation.” In 1954, according to Elio Giusti, George Pappas died. By then the resort had been developed to include all the buildings present in 2007. James Pappas died in 1969. The resort didn’t reopen in the spring of 1971, and in 1973 Elio Giusti purchased a half-interest in the mothballed property from his mother and step-father -- Dina and Bill Pappas. In 1976 he purchased the remainder from his step-uncles’ heirs. The property consisted of 318 acres and the lodge, bathhouses, 64 cabins, and a large modern house on the east side of Big Canyon Road. Between about 1975 and 1983 Republic Geothermal, Inc. held leases for geothermal exploration on 1,300 acres including the Howard Springs property. An environmental impact statement was prepared by Enviros of Los Altos, California, and filed with the Lake County Planning Department. The exploratory drilling conducted by Republic Geothermal constitutes the most recent historic activity of importance from a land use perspective. Actual drilling locations deviated considerably from those identified in the Enviros report, and two 500’ test wells (for shallow-depth temperature information) were placed on Howard Springs property: one on the bluff (southwest of the present resort buildings) where the multipurpose complex is planned, and one east of Big Canyon Road where the ecovillage is proposed. LAST UPDATED ON WEDNESDAY, 23 JANUARY 2013 09:45 |