It was about 100 years ago when J.O. Langford and his family arrived at the big hot springs on the Rio Grande. His first impression of them were from “a hole some six inches in diameter and almost perfectly round, [that] spurted the sparkling water with a force that lifted the column almost a foot above the ledge before it tumbled back in a wreath of white foam.” They built a health spa for folks to come and get healed. Langford himself was long ill, though in time regained the health he’d lost as a malaria-ridden child. A full healing course of baths, a prescription passed down from Indians, was 21 days. Supposedly it worked quite well. Langford wrote that he saw numerous complete cures of gonorrhea, eczema, malaria, stomach illnesses and kidney ailments. I asked my wife the doc if his claims have any medical credence. She said aside from sulfur helping eczema and the desert air killing bacteria, hot spring cures are a myth. I struggle to explain Langford’s eye witness curative accounts in ways not involving personal pride. Then again, 21 days relaxing in a river canyon oasis is a pretty good way to feel better. I spent about three weeks in Big Bend, and though I did not visit the springs every day, I managed half a dozen trips. The foundation of Langford’s bath house still stands (it was built by a German national who shot his family and then himself when the Kaiser called him back to the motherland to fight in World War I) and is a pocket of clear, 105 degree water jutting into the muddy green Rio Grande under the open desert sky. The river and Mexico are on one side and yellow limestone cliffs on the other. People from all over still come there to soak in the water that, even if it does little to combat disease, does wonders for the soul.
