Seaside Hot Springs & the Resort That Disappeared

AI-generated historical recreation inspired by archival views of Seaside Lake, now Roberts Lake. This is not an original historical photograph.

If someone told you that Seaside once had natural hot springs and was being developed as a resort town, would you believe them?

Probably not.

Today's Seaside is much better known for its connection with Fort Ord, its diverse residential neighborhoods, Broadway Avenue, Monterey Bay views and the postwar military families who helped shape the modern city.

Hot springs don't really fit the picture.

Except they were real.

Not only did naturally heated sulfurous water exist beneath early Seaside, but the City's own historical record says a hot-springs resort was part of the community during its earliest years.

And more than a century later, another clue remains hidden in plain sight.

Some Seaside properties are still legally described as being located in the:

Hot Springs Tract.

Seaside Was Originally Supposed to Be a Resort Town

To understand the hot springs, we need to go back to a Seaside that would be almost unrecognizable today.

In 1887, a young New York physician named Dr. John L.D. Roberts saw development potential in land east of Monterey and close to the fashionable Hotel Del Monte.

Roberts purchased roughly 150 to 160 acres and began dividing the property into residential lots.

His vision was not initially a military town or a working-class suburb.

It was a resort.

Early promotional material emphasized Seaside's mild climate, proximity to Monterey Bay, boating, bathing, fishing and recreation.

Roberts believed the community could attract people looking for summer homes and a healthy coastal environment.

He was selling a lifestyle.

The Original Seaside Was Near Roberts Lake

Early development clustered around what was then known as Laguna del Rey, today's Roberts Lake.

The lake and nearby Monterey Bay were important parts of the original resort concept.

Visitors could imagine boating on the lake, bathing along the coast and enjoying a temperate climate only a short distance from Hotel Del Monte.

At first, the developing community was sometimes known as East Monterey.

By the early 1890s, however, the name Seaside had taken hold.

The community had a post office, schools, churches and transportation connections.

And according to the City of Seaside's historical account, it also had a hot-springs resort.

So Were There Really Hot Springs in Seaside?

Yes.

And this is where the historical evidence becomes particularly interesting.

A United States Geological Survey study of groundwater in the Seaside area documented unusually warm groundwater associated with the buried Seaside Fault.

One well drilled in 1902 into the Monterey Shale produced water with a sulfurous odor at approximately:

120 degrees Fahrenheit.

Researchers also documented a sulfur hot spring in the same general area producing water at approximately:

100 degrees Fahrenheit.

Those aren't slightly warm groundwater temperatures.

That's legitimately hot water.

The USGS concluded that the Seaside Fault likely provided a pathway allowing heated groundwater to rise toward the surface.

The Hot Springs Tract

Perhaps the most tangible surviving piece of the story isn't a spring at all.

It's a subdivision name.

Early maps of the area east of Monterey identify several subdivisions around Laguna del Rey and the future Seaside area.

Among them were:

• East Monterey
• Vista Del Rey
• Lake Side Tract
• Del Monte Heights
• Hot Springs Tract

That name wasn't simply forgotten when modern Seaside developed over the old subdivision.

It remains embedded in Monterey County property records.

Legal descriptions for modern properties along streets including Olympia Avenue, Palm Avenue, Terrace Street and Fremont Boulevard still reference the Hot Springs Tract.

A homeowner may have no obvious sign of a nineteenth-century resort nearby, yet the property's legal description can preserve the story.

A Clue Hidden in Real Estate Records

This is one of the things that makes local real estate history so interesting.

Old subdivisions don't necessarily disappear when a neighborhood changes.

Their names can survive for generations in deeds, assessor records and legal descriptions.

The person living on the property may call the neighborhood Seaside.

The MLS may place it within a modern neighborhood area.

Google Maps may use a street address.

But buried in the title record may be a much older name:

Hot Springs Tract.

It's essentially a historical breadcrumb preserved by real estate.

What Did the Seaside Hot Springs Resort Look Like?

Here the story becomes less certain.

The City of Seaside clearly identifies a hot-springs resort as part of the early community.

Historic mapping identifies a Hot Springs Tract.

Geological records confirm actual thermal water.

What we have not found is the same rich collection of photographs, advertisements and architectural descriptions that survives for places such as Hotel Del Monte or Tassajara Hot Springs.

We therefore don't want to turn a documented story into something more elaborate than the evidence supports.

Was there a grand Victorian spa hotel?

We have not found evidence establishing that.

Were there formal bathhouses or pools?

Possibly — but the historical sources we've reviewed so far don't give us enough detail to say confidently what facilities were ultimately constructed.

That missing information is part of the Local Lore.

The Water Was Real Even If the Resort Has Faded From Memory

What we can say with much more confidence is that this was not simply a nineteenth-century real-estate promoter inventing a “hot springs” name to sell lots.

The geology supports the story.

The area contains a buried fault.

Warm sulfurous groundwater was documented.

A well produced 120-degree water.

A nearby spring produced approximately 100-degree water.

And residents remembered hot water flowing at the surface decades later.

There really was something hot beneath Seaside.

Why Would Hot Springs Have Mattered in the 1890s?

The timing is important.

In the late nineteenth century, mineral springs and hot-springs resorts were extremely fashionable destinations.

People traveled to springs for relaxation, recreation and supposed health benefits.

California communities such as Calistoga, Paso Robles, Paraiso Springs and Tassajara built tourism identities around naturally heated mineral water.

So imagine the sales pitch for early Seaside:

A mild coastal climate.

Monterey Bay.

A lake.

Rail transportation.

Nearby Hotel Del Monte.

Beaches and fishing.

And natural hot water.

From a nineteenth-century developer's perspective, the resort concept made a lot of sense.

Dr. Roberts Had Big Plans for Seaside

Dr. Roberts was not thinking small.

Historical promotional material described Seaside as having an exceptional climate and promoted it as a place for summer homes.

He emphasized Monterey Bay for bathing and fishing and Laguna del Rey for boating and hunting.

His goal was to establish Seaside as a desirable destination rather than simply another subdivision outside Monterey.

And Roberts himself went on to become one of the most influential people in the early development of the area.

He served as postmaster, school trustee and Monterey County supervisor.

He also played an important role in advocating for the military training lands that would eventually become associated with Fort Ord.

Ironically, that military connection would help transform Seaside into something very different from the resort community he initially envisioned.

The Resort Town Became a Working People's Town

The City of Seaside summarizes the transition well.

Although the community began through resort development, it gradually became a town of working people.

The Depression accelerated that evolution.

Lots were inexpensive.

Families arrived looking for affordable places to live.

And then Fort Ord changed everything.

Fort Ord Rewrote Seaside's Future

The military presence north of Seaside expanded dramatically during the twentieth century, particularly during World War II.

Thousands of soldiers and civilian employees needed housing and services.

Seaside was immediately adjacent to the base.

Its future was no longer primarily tied to attracting vacationers.

It became tied to the people working and serving at Fort Ord.

After the U.S. Army integrated in 1948, Seaside also became an important residential community for Black military families who faced housing discrimination elsewhere on the Monterey Peninsula.

That helped shape the city's unusually diverse population, businesses, politics, music and culture.

The resort town envisioned in the 1880s evolved into something far more socially significant.

Where Did the Original Resort Seaside Go?

Another reason Seaside's earliest history is difficult to recognize today is that modern municipal boundaries don't perfectly match the community's original geography.

When Seaside incorporated in 1954, it did not retain all of the area associated with its earliest development.

The City notes that portions of the oldest Seaside area ultimately became part of Monterey, while much of the shoreline became associated with Sand City.

Modern highways, commercial development and residential construction also transformed the landscape around Roberts Lake.

The geography of the resort-era community became fragmented.

The Hot Springs Are Still Under There Somewhere

Unlike the Witch Tree of Pebble Beach or Pacific Grove's old tent camps, the physical feature behind this story didn't necessarily disappear.

The geothermal system is part of the geology.

The Seaside Fault still exists beneath the city.

Warm groundwater has been scientifically documented there.

What changed was the way people used — or stopped using — that water.

Today, there is no famous Seaside spa district and no public hot-springs resort drawing visitors off Highway 1.

Most people living in or driving through Seaside would probably never guess that naturally hot sulfur water helped give an early subdivision its name.

The Hot Springs Tract Still Exists on Paper

For me, this may be the most interesting part of the entire story.

A resort can disappear.

A spring can stop flowing visibly.

A neighborhood can be completely rebuilt.

But real estate records have very long memories.

More than a century later, properties in modern Seaside still carry legal descriptions referring to the Hot Springs Tract.

It's a reminder that today's neighborhoods are layered over earlier versions of the same place.

And sometimes the most interesting local history appears not on a historical marker, but on a preliminary title report.

What Can You See Today?

There isn't a restored Victorian hot-springs resort waiting to be visited.

Instead, the surviving clues are subtle.

You can visit the area around modern Roberts Lake and imagine the much less developed landscape that early resort promoters saw.

You can drive through older Seaside neighborhoods and streets laid out during successive waves of early subdivision.

And if you look at historical maps or certain property records, you can still find the words:

Hot Springs Tract.

The resort itself may be largely forgotten.

Its name isn't.

A Different Way to Think About Seaside

One reason I like this story is that it challenges the simplified version of Seaside history.

Seaside is often described primarily through Fort Ord.

That chapter is enormously important.

But Seaside existed for decades before the Army transformed the community.

Before the military town was the resort town.

Before the postwar neighborhoods were dunes, scattered holiday homes and speculative subdivisions.

Before Broadway became the commercial heart of the community, developers were talking about beaches, boating and hot springs.

Knowing that earlier story gives modern Seaside another layer.

The Resort Idea Never Completely Disappeared

There is also an interesting historical echo here.

More than a century after Roberts first promoted Seaside as a destination, parts of the city are again associated with resort development, recreation and golf around the former Fort Ord lands.

History rarely repeats itself exactly.

But sometimes an old idea returns in a completely different form.

Seaside began with aspirations of becoming a resort community.

Then history took it somewhere else entirely.

Why Locals Should Know This Story

The Hot Springs story isn't important because Seaside should somehow recreate an 1890s spa.

It's important because it reminds us how dramatically communities can evolve.

The founders imagined one Seaside.

Fort Ord helped create another.

Civil rights, immigration, economic change and redevelopment created still more versions.

The modern city contains pieces of all of them.

And somewhere beneath today's streets is naturally heated water that helped inspire one of Seaside's earliest dreams.

That's exactly the kind of story we want to preserve in Stories, Legends & Local Lore of the Monterey Peninsula.