©Courtesy of Laurel Olson Cook, author of Spas of California (2002) and Wine Country Spas of California (2003). Visit www.LaurelCook.com
For decades, Calistoga has attracted people who come for the curative powers of its hot mineral waters and the detoxifying effects of its mud baths. As decades passed and medical practices became increasingly more scientifically based, the healing powers of the waters and the mud were regarded more as folklore than fact.
From
the '70s on, however, with the resurgence of interest in alternative
healing, it seems that what the older folk have held to all along—commonsense
preventive care, family doctors and do-it-yourself remedies—are
now part of the general conversation about health care at both
the personal and policy level. Americans are beginning to recognize
that Western medicine and folk medicine, or alternative medicine,
are not mutually exclusive: they can and should coexist harmoniously.
Indeed, we are seeing more and more medical practices that incorporate
the terms "complementary medicine" or
"integrated medicine" in their business names.
Calistoga has a way of absorbing changes with style and grace. In other words, I can still walk the length of Lincoln Avenue and not weep about the loss of the good old days or bemoan the gentrification of a town rich in "ic"s--historic, bucolic, rustic. Nothing, to my eye, at least, has disturbed the easy country feel of this very special place which, long before Sam Brannan founded it in 1859, has been giving up its healing waters and volcanic mud for our health and pleasure. As the story goes, it was Brannan who inadvertently called this goldmine of mineral water and volcanic ash "The Calistoga of Sarifornia" instead of what he intended—"The Saratoga of California." History buffs can drop in to the Sharpsteen Museum and learn about the early days when the Wappo Indians had it to themselves.