Camas Hot Springs

Current status: the bathhouse is closed

If you are looking for a place called Camas Hot Springs to soak in, you will not find one open. Camas was the tribal bathhouse in the village of Hot Springs, Montana, and it has been shut since the 1980s. The building still stands on the north side of town, empty, and OpenStreetMap labels it “Camas Hot Springs (Closed).”

The water did not go anywhere. The same group of springs that fed the Camas baths still feeds the soaking businesses in town, and you can be in hot water a few minutes’ walk away. This page covers what Camas was, what you will see, and where to go instead.

What Camas was

The springs sit in the Little Bitterroot Valley on the Flathead Indian Reservation, at about 2,800 feet. Kootenai, Salish, Pend d’Oreille and Kalispel people used them long before the town existed, and the Pend d’Oreille reportedly called the water “Big Medicine.” The Jesuit missionary Pierre-Jean De Smet wrote about bathing here in 1842. When the reservation was created, Congress set aside a 160-acre reserve around the springs. The surrounding land opened to homesteaders in 1910, and the town grew up around the baths.

By 1905 there were rough soaking pools, a mineral plunge and the mud baths locals called the “corn hole.” Enclosed bathhouses followed in 1911. After World War II, the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes put their own money into the town and built the Camas bathhouse. A 1963 Bureau of Indian Affairs release dates the tribal enterprise to 1948 and describes an outdoor swimming pool, an open-air foot bath, and a bathhouse with dry-heat rooms, steam rooms, mineral baths, massage rooms and walk-in mud baths. Wikipedia gives 1949 for the opening and says the athlete Jim Thorpe came to the ceremony.

The building itself is worth a look. A Montana historic preservation writer describes it as one of the clearest examples of mid-century modernism in rural Montana: flat roofs, long low wings, a tall chimney and round steel stilts. For a couple of decades it drew crowds, and the town grew through the 1950s and 1960s. Then interstate highways pulled traffic elsewhere and the 1970s recession hit travel. Accounts put the closing anywhere from about 1980 to 1986. Wikipedia says mineral deposits clogging the pipes and high heating bills finished it off.

A local group leased the building in 1989 with plans to revive it, but those plans fell apart by 1995. Meanwhile the tribe paid for a public park with access to the springs in 1991, which a volunteer group has helped keep up. Those outdoor pools now operate as Big Medicine Hot Springs.

What you will find today

From the street you can see the long, low Camas building, weathered and closed. There is no admission, no staff and no way in. Do not climb fences or enter the structure. It is tribal property, it has been decaying for decades, and old buildings around hot water are often soft underfoot.

Walk a few hundred yards east and you reach Big Medicine Hot Springs, which OpenStreetMap places on the same block of North Road. Symes Hot Springs Hotel and Mineral Baths is a short walk south on Wall Street.

Getting there

Hot Springs is a small village on the eastern edge of Sanders County, reached by a short spur off Montana Highway 28. MT-28 runs between Elmo on US-93, near the west shore of Flathead Lake, and Plains on MT-200, so you can come in from Kalispell and Polson to the northeast or from the Clark Fork valley to the southwest. Park in town; the old bathhouse is on the north side near the springs park.

When to go

There is no season for a closed building. The working soaks in town are open all year, and winter is a favorite time for regulars, when steam hangs over the outdoor pools and the valley is quiet. Summer brings more visitors on their way to Flathead Lake and Glacier National Park.

Rules and etiquette

• Stay outside the Camas building. It is closed and on tribal land.
• You are on the Flathead Reservation. Respect tribal property, posted signs and any rules the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes set for their land.
• Pay at the working pools. The soaks in town each have their own fees and hours. Check them directly before you go.
• Be a good guest. Hot Springs is a small town with a long history around this water, and much of it is sacred to the tribes.

Where to soak instead

• Big Medicine Hot Springs: the public outdoor pools on the springs next to the old bathhouse. This is the closest thing to what Camas used to offer.
• Symes Hot Springs Hotel and Mineral Baths: a Mission-style hotel opened by Fred Symes in 1930 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places, with mineral pools, old-style single tubs, cabins and food.
• Alameda’s Hot Springs Retreat: lodging with mineral soaking in town.
• Wild Horse Hot Springs: about 2.5 miles outside town in Lake County. It started as Camp Aqua, the bathhouse and children’s polio treatment project that Molly Bartlett founded in 1941, and later took its present name.

Where to stay nearby

Symes and Alameda’s both rent rooms in town, and Wild Horse has cabins and camping outside it. Wikipedia also notes camping near the springs. For more choice, Polson and the Flathead Lake shore are a drive to the northeast, and Plains is to the southwest on MT-200.

Safety notes

• Old structures: Abandoned buildings near hot springs hide rotten floors, broken glass and scalding pipes. Look from the outside only.
• Source water: NOAA data cited by Wikipedia puts the water at about 113°F45°C where it emerges. Never put bare skin in an unmanaged outflow.
• Remote valley: Services in Hot Springs are limited, especially at night and in winter. Fill up on fuel before you leave US-93 or MT-200.