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![]() ![]() Times, 23 July 1916, Note that the photo of the hotel at the bottom is the same image as the postcard below. Projected to have 150 rooms, though a later description indicated there were a third of that, and cost $75,000, the hotel included some interesting features, including a combined bedroom and parlor by having “folding beds, lavers and clothes pressers will form a part of the partition walls” and, when the Murphy bed was folded, it was ventilated in the recess. Newton, but to be operated in conjunction with the resort. The three-story Mission Revival structure with a set-back central block and two projecting wings was planned by W.T. Not long afterwards, the Bimini Hotel was built across the street from the springs. The 15-acre complex was to have beautiful gardens and views from an eminence included the coast and sea. The roof was largely glass and tropical plants enhanced the green and white paint scheme. A lighted, arched bridge spanned the pool, which was to be used for amateur swimming competitions and water polo matches. The “colossal natatorium” consisted of a massive wood-frame building of 16,000 square feet with a large central plunge and a surrounding balcony with a capacity for 1,000 spectators. While some sources claim the name was derived from the westernmost island of the Bahamas chain (devastated this week by Hurricane Dorian), the Los Angeles Times, dubbing the resort a “local wonder,” reported the moniker came from a namesake poem about Ponce de Leon and his reputed search for the fountain of youth by Hesekiah Butterworth and published in Victoria Magazine in 1877. On the last day of 1902, Edwards opened the Bimini resort. Though Edwards did not find the big strike he was aiming for, he did, at a depth of 1,750 feet hit a huge spring of hot mineral water. He acquired property on gently sloping land off Vermont Avenue near 3rd Street and drilled for oil, not long after the Los Angeles City oil field was brought in by Charles Canfield and Edward Doheny. ![]() ![]() While Edwards continued in the insurance line, he also invested in real estate as the City of Angeles continued to grow, including west of downtown. Edwards, born in Wisconsin in 1849, lived in Minneapolis for many years and appears to have done well in the insurance industry before migrating with his family to Los Angeles about 1895. Los Angeles Times, 28 December 1902.Ī well-known resort in Los Angeles just west of downtown was the Bimini Hot Springs, which was the brainchild of former dentist and insurance company executive David W. Some of these, especially in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, became resorts and tourist attractions, including examples east of San Juan Capistrano, Carbon Canyon near Brea, and the Alvarado Hot Springs in the Puente Hills in modern Rowland Heights. Obviously, we don’t have volcanoes in our region ready to erupt and spew lava through the area (though there are a number of extinct volcanoes around us), so most of the attention given to this condition is through frequently experienced earthquakes.Īnother dimension of our being in that belt, though, are the hot (mineral) springs which dot our landscape. Those of us living in greater Los Angeles do so as residents of an active part of the “Rim of Fire” and its “circum-Pacific belt” of ongoing volcanic and seismic activity. ![]()
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