Oakridge looking to purchase, restore historic hot springs site 

For more than a century, Kitson Hot Springs, nestled among towering conifers and surrounded by the Willamette National Forest, has been drawing people to its relaxing waters.

As far back as the 1890s, locals and travelers made the trek to the springs. As the nearby town of Oakridge grew, and the timber industry boomed, David Kitson built a resort there, complete with a hotel and a bathhouse. The hot springs flourished for decades, through a series of owners who allowed public use.

Now, much of the bathhouse is gone. Bats congregate in the back of its remains, even as steamy water still flows nearby. 

Despite the ruins, Kitson Hot Springs still holds potential – for many of the same reasons Oregonians visited it in an earlier era. Now, Oakridge officials are interested in having the city purchase 157 acres that includes the hot springs and that eventually could feature biking or hiking trails, a small hotel and a community forest that is thinned — but not clear-cut — to generate revenue to sustain the property. 

It’s far from a done deal. But the city is making a serious bid to cobble together the money needed to purchase the property from the Boy Scouts of America, which owns the land. The city holds the exclusive right to purchase the property for $2.5 million, as it seeks grants and donations to cover the cost.

If it becomes reality, the purchase would mark the start of a new chapter for Kitson Hot Springs. For more than half a century, Kitson Hot Springs has been largely closed off to the general public. In the 1970s, private owners donated the site to the Boy Scouts of America, which continued to use the forested land for camping.

With the land up for sale, Oakridge officials have a primary goal: preservation.

“Conservation is key,” Oakridge City Manager James Cleavenger said as he led a Lookout Eugene-Springfield correspondent and photographer on a tour of the site. “Our No. 1 goal is preserving the land.”

City officials worry that without the community purchasing the land, the hot springs and surrounding forest could disappear into the hands of a wealthy private owner.

That could lead to clear-cutting the timber — and keeping the hot springs out of public hands. It also could lead to the risk of industrial development for mineral extraction.

“There’s a lot of water to protect, a lot of land to protect,” Cleavenger said. “If we don’t get it, some rich a—hole’s gonna get it – or some timber company. There’s a certain element of preservation and heritage that’s really at stake here, too, when you look at what it used to be.”

City sees potential 

For Oakridge, Kitson Hot Springs could become part of its future — not just its past. 

Oakridge, tucked into the mountains about 40 miles east of Eugene, is a community with nearly 3,500 residents. The sawmill industry, fed by a railroad, fueled the community’s growth in its early years. Area mills shuttered in the 1980s, but now the community’s leaders see potential in the area’s recreation assets, including the hot springs site, to draw visitors. 

Willamette National Forest land blankets the region surrounding Oakridge, limiting opportunities for large land purchases. The U.S. Forest Service is among the town’s largest employers.

“To have a really nice, clean, operating hot springs would bring a lot of tourism and tourism dollars for the city,” Oakridge Mayor Bryan Cutchen said.

Kitson Hot Springs is about 5 miles southeast of Oakridge, located off a mountain road along a blue sliver of Hills Creek, an offshoot of a large reservoir.

While privately owned and not publicly accessible, its presence is well-known, given its long history. And hot springs are not an anomaly in this corner of Lane County: McCredie Hot Springs, a publicly accessible area in the Willamette National Forest, is about 8 miles east of Oakridge off Highway 58 along Salt Creek. 

But before Oakridge can bring the site back into public hands, the city will need the money.

Oakridge maps out opportunities

For about a year, Oakridge has been looking for opportunities to fund the purchase. Earlier this month, the city renewed its agreement with the Boy Scouts and put up $25,000 of earnest money to maintain the right to exclusively purchase it.

Financing opportunities include a potential $600,000 grant from the U.S. Forest Service, as well as other private, state and federal sources. 

City officials say the money is unlikely to come from one primary source. It’s more likely, they say, to come through a combination of grants and donations. The Upper Willamette Soil & Water Conservation District has provided $83,000 for the effort.

Locals have formed a group, Friends of Kitson Springs, that has a GoFundMe drive with a $25,000 goal. 

Cutchen said the federal government’s clampdown on various grants and funding complicates Oakridge’s effort. 

“Unfortunately, this whole sort of uncertainty with the federal government happened right when we were in the middle of escrow,” he said. “So that really kind of threw a wrench into things. But, you know, I’m optimistic that we can hammer out a new escrow agreement that gives us time to find the funding, and that’s what we need, is time.”

Later in August, the Boy Scouts and Oakridge will revisit the escrow agreement and decide whether to renew it.

An official for the Boy Scouts confirmed the negotiations, but declined to comment further. 

More than hot springs

Dirk “Poncho” Tarman, a member of the Oakridge City Council, has memories of the hot springs from his boyhood. Growing up in nearby Westfir, his family rented out the hot springs from the Boy Scouts for annual gatherings for years.

“It was nice and quiet,” he said. “We just had our own private camping spot where we could swim and hang out for a week and ride bikes with kids.”

He’s soaked in the springs with family, with a makeshift wooden tub lined with a tarp. A hose connected to aging pipelines draws in the water. Tarman, 49, first trekked out to the site with family when he was 8 or 9 years old.

He and others want that experience to become part of larger events. The hot springs could be a site for corporate gatherings, mountain biking trails or more.

For all the potential, much work lies ahead.

“Right now we’re just at the beginning stages of trying to figure out how this could happen,” Tarman said. “There’s still a lot of talk that needs to be had about business plans and who the partners are.”

Geothermal research is one potential use, with an eye toward preservation of the forest resources.

One supporter of the project is the Southern Willamette Forest Collaborative. The Oakridge-based organization has provided guidance to the city’s effort, including the concept of a community forest at the site.

Sarah Altemus-Pope, the collaborative’s executive director, said community forests keep land sustainable and preserved from developers that would clear-cut trees. A growing trend, community forests usually are managed by groups that include municipalities, nonprofits and land trusts. About a dozen community forests exist in Oregon, part of some 100 nationwide.

Community forests are working forests. In this case, the forest around Kitson Hot Springs could be thinned for wildfire protection and sustainably managed.

“If the community has it, they can do the thinning work that’s needed for wildfire risk reduction,” Altemus-Pope said. “They can put in trails for recreation use, and it is a beautiful area. Then the hot springs can be developed, probably through a partnership, but there’s lots of different ways to make it work.”

It can also build on what already makes Oakridge famous. Oakridge is often called the “mountain biking capital of the Northwest,” with more than 300 miles of biking trails.

The hot springs site could build upon that — and offer more trails eventually.

For Cutchen, the mayor, and others, that makes sense.

I could see someone taking their mountain bike up, working on that all day, and then coming over and sitting in the hot springs,” he said.