Buckhorn Baths
Ted and Alice Sliger founded Buckhorn Baths in 1939, after the couple tired of hauling water and scraped together enough money to dig a well at their trading post, which served as a post office and Greyhound bus stop in the desert east of Mesa.
Ted Sliger happened to strike mineral water, giving birth to the unique spa that eventually drew The New York Giants, now the World Champion San Francisco Giants, starting in 1948. Giants owner Horace Stoneham would send his pitchers and catchers to the spa a week before spring training to limber up their muscles to avoid injuries and other teams quickly followed.
Ted Sliger happened to strike mineral water, giving birth to the unique spa that eventually drew The New York Giants, now the World Champion San Francisco Giants, starting in 1948. Giants owner Horace Stoneham would send his pitchers and catchers to the spa a week before spring training to limber up their muscles to avoid injuries and other teams quickly followed.
Ted and Alice Sliger built Buckhorn Baths more than 70 years ago after discovering a hot spring. Its quaint Western architecture and therapeutic waters quickly made it an anchor attraction along a nationally traveled highway.
The New York Giants began staying there in 1947 to limber up before spring training. Other teams followed, and the Sligers became key players in growing the Cactus League, now a multimillion-dollar economic engine for the state.
Eventually, teams built their own training facilities, and the Buckhorn, like dozens of Main Street motels and shops, fell out of fashion with tourists once the freeway opened a few miles south.
Buckhorn Baths closed to the public in 1999 and [in 2010] was placed atop a national preservation group's most endangered structures list.
The New York Giants began staying there in 1947 to limber up before spring training. Other teams followed, and the Sligers became key players in growing the Cactus League, now a multimillion-dollar economic engine for the state.
Eventually, teams built their own training facilities, and the Buckhorn, like dozens of Main Street motels and shops, fell out of fashion with tourists once the freeway opened a few miles south.
Buckhorn Baths closed to the public in 1999 and [in 2010] was placed atop a national preservation group's most endangered structures list.
In the mid-1960s, the Sligers had a staff of about 25 employees at the Buckhorn. Sliger opened the famed museum at 5900 E. Main Street with her taxidermist husband, Ted, in 1939. Although The Buckhorn Baths, as it also was called, had been closed since 1999, 25 years after Ted Sliger died, it was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2005 after years of efforts spearheaded by Ron Peters, a family friend who serves on Mesa's historic preservation board.
The business once featured 27 stone tubs, 15 adobe-style travel cottages with carports and a wildlife museum displaying 450 animals including many species that no longer are in Arizona. The Sligers also lived in a house on the property.
Because of the supposed healing powers of the mineral springs running under at least 10 acres of the complex on the northwest corner of Main Street and Recker Road, the Sligers also touted the Buckhorn as the place "that sealed the deal" for luring the New York Giants to Arizona for spring training in 1947 - 11 years before former Giants owner Stoneham moved the team to San Francisco. A long line of baseball players for nearly the next six decades had mineral baths and massages there. The players who once were at the Buckhorn included Hall of Famers such as Ty Cobb after his playing days, Ted Williams, Ernie Banks and Gaylord Perry.
Perry, who lives in North Carolina, said that he had a lot of fond memories of staying at the Buckhorn and had first been invited there with a group of Giants players in the early 1960s.
Peters said, "There was so much that the Buckhorn was to the community. It used to be a Greyhound bus station, a post office and there was a nine-hole sand golf course there. When more people began traveling by car, when they were building the main building and the small guest units or motel rooms, Alice told stories about how Ted started using bricks from Mesa's first schoolhouse and when cowboys passed through town who needed room and board, Ted Sliger would let them stay if they helped construct other buildings.
The Buckhorn also houses one of the best collections of metates in the Southwest. Metates are Native American grinding stones that are cemented around mortar into the walls of the various buildings of the complex, according to Peters.
The business once featured 27 stone tubs, 15 adobe-style travel cottages with carports and a wildlife museum displaying 450 animals including many species that no longer are in Arizona. The Sligers also lived in a house on the property.
Because of the supposed healing powers of the mineral springs running under at least 10 acres of the complex on the northwest corner of Main Street and Recker Road, the Sligers also touted the Buckhorn as the place "that sealed the deal" for luring the New York Giants to Arizona for spring training in 1947 - 11 years before former Giants owner Stoneham moved the team to San Francisco. A long line of baseball players for nearly the next six decades had mineral baths and massages there. The players who once were at the Buckhorn included Hall of Famers such as Ty Cobb after his playing days, Ted Williams, Ernie Banks and Gaylord Perry.
Perry, who lives in North Carolina, said that he had a lot of fond memories of staying at the Buckhorn and had first been invited there with a group of Giants players in the early 1960s.
Peters said, "There was so much that the Buckhorn was to the community. It used to be a Greyhound bus station, a post office and there was a nine-hole sand golf course there. When more people began traveling by car, when they were building the main building and the small guest units or motel rooms, Alice told stories about how Ted started using bricks from Mesa's first schoolhouse and when cowboys passed through town who needed room and board, Ted Sliger would let them stay if they helped construct other buildings.
The Buckhorn also houses one of the best collections of metates in the Southwest. Metates are Native American grinding stones that are cemented around mortar into the walls of the various buildings of the complex, according to Peters.
by Mike Sakal, East Valley Tribune
November 10, 2010
November 10, 2010
Alice Sliger (front row, center) with the owners and some players of the San Francisco Giants in front of the Buckhorn Mineral Baths in the mid-1960s. Hall of Fame pitcher Gaylord Perry is pictured in the back row, fifth from the left. Perry’s father is pictured on Sliger’s right.