Hot Springs sign needs refurbishing

THERMOPOLIS – During the April meeting of the Hot Springs County Historical Society in the Big Horn Federal meeting room, members discussed the importance and issues with getting the “World’s Largest Mineral Hot Springs” rock sign with two arrows on Monument Hill in Thermopolis refurbished.

“Several years ago it was redone by the Historical Society. The rocks are starting to slide. They have been sliding for years, so the letters themselves are kind of getting out of whack. Every time we have a snow storm a little bit keeps sliding away,” Hot Springs County Historical Society former president Barb Vietti said.

“The sign needs to be refurbished; I mean it’s getting pretty ratty looking. It’s kind of fallen on us [Historical Society] to keep that up and we work with the state park on that. I did that about three years ago, climbed up there and painted that, we used backpack sprayers to paint it, but the issue now is, when we did it the last time the rocks need to be replaced. A lot of them, through erosion and vandalism, a lot of them are gone. There are places up there where it’s going to take some major rock work, just to build the sign back,” Hot Springs County Historical Society president Ray Shaffer said.

Replacing the rocks and repainting them is a tough job Shaffer said. He explained that the sign consists of 6,000 square feet and that much of the area is quite steep, so any weather or wind can make for a rough time. “When we were up there and did it before, I measured it; there is 6,000 square feet to paint. It’s quite an area and a lot of it is pretty steep. You get a little wind going and things like that; it’s kind of a challenge to get up there. We can come up with the money and the stuff to do the painting but it’s getting the crew to do the actual work to get the rocks and do the painting on it, any group that’s tried it, they do it once. So it’s kind of a chore,” Shaffer said.

The Historical Society has been talking with Hot Springs State Park Superintendent Kevin Skates about the best way to get the work done. “I visited with Kevin Skates the other day, they’ve got a conservation crew that comes in here, I guess they are kids out of the university [University of Wyoming] that do summer work and they get them in the state parks every year. So they may direct them to do that, they are at this time scheduled for trail work but he was going to see if he could get them to do the actual rock work,” Shaffer said.

According to Vietti, the sign was constructed sometime in the 1930s but people have been visiting the site where the sign is painted since the late 1800s. “Originally in the late 1800s people would come here and soak in the hot water and then they would walk up the hill. They started making monuments. At one time there were probably 10-15 monuments on the top of the hill. That’s why it was called monument hill. Over the years the monuments disappeared,” Vietti stated.

Vietti explained that several years ago a new monument was built which houses a box with a book in it for visitors to sign. “A couple times a year I take up a book, so anybody who climbs up there, they find a little box and in the box is a register and they can sign their name and often times people write a little story or draw a picture or just make a comment. A lot of people do go up there; there are three really good trails up to the top. It’s really a kind of neat thing to do,” Vietti said.

FIRE

The fire at the Hot Springs County Museum, which occurred on March 30, around 6 a.m. was also discussed. The museum received minimal fire damage due to the fact that it started under the sink in the breakroom, which in turn burned through a water pipe which put the fire out, but the museum received some smoke and a bit of water damage, Shaffer told attendees. “It was a fortunate shot across the bow I guess you would say. It could have been way worse. I don’t know if they ever officially said. What they are aiming at, they think it was combustion, natural combustion. There was some cleaning products and steel wool stored under the sink cabinet in the break room. That’s where it started, they had cameras there and they know exactly when there was a flash; fire and smoke followed. That’s all they can trace it to at this point,” Shaffer said.

He went on to explain to attendees that the smoke and water damage was taken care of by Varney Clean Care from Worland, who were arrived at the museum just hours after the event. “Water damage, they pretty well contained that, Varney cleaned all that out pretty good and dried things out. They are still in disarray over there [museum], they have to replace all the carpets as far as the water went up, and they have to pull all that out. A couple three weeks, I guess they are supposed to be back in full business. They are open but limited right now,” Shaffer said. He added that a curator from the Cody museum came to help museum staff clean the archives without damaging them, due to smoke and soot damage.