“Right from Hades” is how the Idaho Statesman described the hot water being pumped from the ground a few hundred yards northwest of the penitentiary in December 1890.

Kelly Hot Springs, on the east side of Table Rock, was owned by Judge Milton Kelly, editor and publisher of the Idaho Statesman; it had been a popular pleasure resort for Boiseans for a generation.

This, however, was the first time that hot water on the west side of Table Rock had been tapped by drilling an artesian well. It would be used for heating homes and businesses, and for use in a big indoor swimming pool.

Boise’s Artesian Hot & Cold Water Co. modeled its plans for developing the hot water resource after the Broadwater Hotel & Natatorium at Helena, Mont. It hired its German-born architect, John C. Paulsen, to design a natatorium for Boise after a visit to his magnificent Moorish-style structure in Helena persuaded the directors that they, too, should have an exotic Moorish building.

What Montana railroad, real estate, and banking tycoon Charles A. Broadwater had created a few miles west of Helena in 1888-89 was a world-class resort that he hoped would attract visitors from all parts of the United States and even from Europe.

He built on a grand scale, too grand for Helena’s location in what was still regarded by most people as the Wild West.

Although the people in and around Helena would enjoy their elegant natatorium for many years, the hotel was rarely more than partly full and never made money.

Boise’s plans did not include a hotel, but a much more ambitious undertaking to create a hot water system that could heat dozens of homes and businesses. It was the first time geothermal water would be used for that purpose in the United States.

The early 1890s were heady times in Boise. Idaho Territory had just become the 43rd state in the Union, and a spirit of optimism about the city’s future prevailed in the business community. An electric street car line had been completed that ran from Downtown out Warm Springs Avenue to the new Natatorium. On Oct. 8, 1891, the Statesman noted, “At the present time there is more building of dwellings going on between the Natatorium and the Assay Office than in any other part of the city, as may be seen by taking a trip on the street cars.”

Pioneer banker C.W. Moore, president of the water company, demonstrated his faith in the future of hot water heating by installing it in his new brick mansion at the corner of Warm Springs Avenue and Walnut Street. In March 1892, the Statesman noted: “The Flow of the Hot Springs May Warm the City. The experiment has been successfully tried in the elegant mansion recently erected for C.W. Moore, over half a mile distant from the springs.”

It further reported that “At least one third of the Main Street property owners have evinced their willingness to become patrons of the company.”

As its name indicates, the company was prepared to supply cold water as well as hot, and as the demand grew, new artesian wells were drilled.

Among the first Downtown businesses to install hot water heating were the Sonna Building and the Boise City National Bank. A Statesman editorial published Oct. 4, 1892, noted, “The decision to bring the hot water into town for heating purposes is one of the most important steps recently taken here. There is enough of that hot water to heat the entire city; and when it shall have been generally introduced it will make Boise still more distinctively the most desirable and livable city in the West.”

The paper’s optimism was unbounded, and on Nov. 3, 1892, it enthused, “Boise will put on metropolitan airs, and the stove will soon be a thing of the past in the capital city.”

C.W. Moore’s big house on Warm Springs Avenue was the first house in America to be so heated.

Next week we’ll share more of the history of the Natatorium.

Arthur Hart writes this column on Idaho history for the Idaho Statesman each Sunday. Email histnart@mindspring.com.