Hooper Springs Park

At Hooper Springs Park the water comes up cold and sparkling under a covered spring house, and anyone may drink it free. Benches stand at the spring, and an arched bridge and a lava-rock enclosure surround it. The park lies north of Soda Springs, Idaho. The National Park Service puts it one mile north of town, and the city puts it two miles north of the center of town. The City of Soda Springs runs it as a city park. Around the spring are a covered pavilion, picnic tables, stationary barbecue pits, restrooms, a basketball court, and playground equipment installed in 2001. Interpretive exhibits tell the spring’s history, and walking and biking trails start at the park and climb S Hill.

A caravan of spring-devotees

In 2024 the Caribou County News reported on a tour of the town’s springs led by Bill Horsley. Galen Wilson and Jerry Stoor of the Caribou Historical Society came along with what the paper called “a score of spring-devotees and the spring-curious.” The group went by car caravan from Steamboat Springs to Hooper Spring “and all points between,” and at each stop the attendees sampled the water and compared it with the last. Horsley’s own choice was Lover’s Delight, at the base of Chester Hill on the banks of Soda Creek: “I think this one is the coldest and the best. It’s my favorite.” By Horsley’s and Wilson’s account, though, Hooper Springs is probably the most frequently visited of the springs still flowing. The tour ended at Octagon Spring, where many people take the water with lemon juice, lime juice, and sugar.

Planks, a pipe, and a lava-rock wall

The enclosure visitors drink from now was built in stages. Fred Kiesel of the Natural Mineral Water Co. and Joseph T. Torgesen first improved the approach. According to the account Horsley gave, they “placed a five foot diameter surplus pipe from the bottling works over the spring and laid planks across the marshy areas to improve access.” In 1937 Mayor S.E. Matthews and Councilmen J.O. Wallace, R.J. Coppard, T.J. Corrigan, and C.A. Lallatin built the arched bridge and the lava-rock enclosure.

That same year drillers looking for hot water for a pool and health resort struck a carbon dioxide chamber 315 feet down. Carbonated water shot more than 70 feet into the air, and Soda Springs had its geyser. BoiseDev noted that the town already carried its name well before then, because of the naturally carbonated springs nearby, Hooper among them.

Mr. Hooper’s summer home

The spring takes its name from William Henry Hooper, a Salt Lake banker, president of Zion’s Cooperative Mercantile Institution, and business associate of Brigham Young. According to the Caribou County News, both men kept summer homes in the part of Soda Springs known in early settlement as the upper town. Idaho Department of Transportation historical marker 385 stands in Corrigan (City) Park on East 2nd Street South. It says Hooper “did much to found and promote Soda Springs and its soda water industry while serving as Utah’s delegate to Congress.” The marker also records that soda water from these springs was marketed nationally after rail service reached the resort area in 1882. In 1893, mineral water from Soda Springs won recognition at the World’s Fair and Exposition in Chicago. Old bottles of the local water are now kept by the Caribou Historical Society.

Beer Springs on the Bear River

Long before Hooper, the springs had another name. The city’s history says Steamboat Springs and Hooper Springs were originally known as “Beer Springs.” Thomas Jefferson Farnham passed through on August 31, 1839, and wrote that the fur traders called the Soda Springs by that name. Washington Irving’s account of Captain Bonneville, who was at the springs in 1833, described the water as “having the taste of beer,” and said Bonneville’s men “drank it with avidity, and in copious draughts.” Asahel Munger, on July 16, 1838, found it “as good soda as I ever drank boiling up out of the earth.” He said it had “a smart taste like small beer, though it has more of the string to it than any beer I ever drank.”

The National Park Service counts Hooper Springs among the natural fountains emigrants on the Oregon Trail considered one of its marvels. Emigrants added flavorings to the water to make soda-fountain drinks. Sarah White Smith traveled along the Bear River and camped at Soda Springs on July 24, 1838. She drank the water and recorded that it “produced a little sickness,” then found another use for it:

“We find it excellent for baking bread, no preparation of water is necessary. Take it from the fountain & the bread is as light as any prepared with yeast.”