LA GRANDE — Historian Richard Roth, the author of a series of books about Hot Lake’s history, is again in a paradoxical position.

It is one Roth embraces.

Roth busts myths and introduces readers to true tales about Hot Lake’s pre-1974 history, stories arguably more interesting than the fiction that shroud the site like the steam rising from its broiling waters on cold days.

The prolific writer is at again in his latest book, the second edition of “Hot Lake — A Short Story,” which puts folklore to rest and brings interesting documented stories to light.

“True history is far more interesting than myths,” Roth said.

His latest work includes a story about an incident that proves the Old West was alive and well at Hot Lake in 1883. Roth writes about a shooting in Hot Lake’s old dance hall in March of that year that ultimately claimed two lives. Eighteen people were in the dance hall when a pistol shot rang out, and one Clay Miller took a fatal bullet.

“I’m shot boys, I’m shot,” Miller cried out before he died, Roth said.

The shootout was the result of three men entering a room near the dance hall with a bottle containing an alcoholic beverage they had concealed. The bottle went missing, which led to an argument that resulted in the shooting. A man named H. Green also was hit in the shooting and died three years later as a result of his wound, said Roth, who found an account of the shooting in an 1880s copy of The Daily Astorian.

Hold the Mayo

Roth lives in Orting, Washington, but knows Hot Lake firsthand. He grew up there, and his parents, the late A.J. and Fern Roth, owned Hot Lake from 1942-74. In his youth, he heard the founders of the famed Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, brothers Charles and William Mayor, often visited Hot Lake and were friends of one of its leaders, physician and surgeon Dr. W.T. Phy.

Roth said there is no truth to this story.

The Mayo Historical Unit, at Roth’s request, did an extensive review and found nothing indicating the Mayo brothers were ever at Hot Lake or that Phy had any social interactions with them. Roth also wrote no evidence was found indicating Phy, who died in 1931, received any medical training at the Mayo Clinic.

While Phy never enjoyed the renown of the Mayo brothers, he was a highly regarded physician and surgeon during the more than 15 years he practiced at Hot Lake and developed a first-class medical facility.

“Hot Lake may have been one of the best medical centers west of Chicago about a century ago,” Roth said, noting its x-ray equipment then was state of the art.

The physician, who served as president of the Oregon State Board of Health in the 1920s, had a noteworthy collection of medical books.

“Phy’s medical library rivaled that of any professor in a teaching hospital of the time,” Roth said in his new book.

Roth can understand why rumors of Phy’s connections to the Mayo Clinic got started because Hot Lake once billed itself in advertisements as the “Mayo Clinic of the West.” Roth said this advertising label can be traced back to 1919 when Fred Lockley, a writer with the old Oregon Journal, visited Hot Lake and produced a series of articles about it.

Lockley in one article wrote, “The time is fast approaching when the fame of Hot Lake will be as well known to the those in the West who need surgical attention as Rochester, Minnesota is through the work done by the Mayo brothers.”

More tales, no evidence

Hot Lake myths that have no semblance of truth include one involving Wild Bill Hickok, the legendary gunfighter and gambler of the Old West. According to at least one website, Hickok visited Hot Lake’s hotel in the 1800s.

Roth has taken a deep look at this story and has not found a shred of evidence or documentation to support it. Still, he knows it will persist.

“Some myths never die!” Roth wrote.

Another enduring fable has it that Hot Lake served as a hospital for tuberculosis patients.

This would seem plausible because it operated as a health care facility from the early 1900s until the late 1930s, a time when there were many tuberculosis sanitariums in the United States.

Roth, however, is certain Hot Lake was never a tuberculosis hospital. He quotes a promotional brochure published in the mid-1920s to put this notion to rest. It says the following about Hot Lake’s hospital, then named Hot Lake Sanitarium: “The Sanitarium is open for the treatment of all conditions, both medical and surgical, except tuberculosis of the lungs or acute infectious diseases.”

Roth said a myth that developed after his family sold Hot Lake in 1974 is there was a piano on the third floor of its main building that played itself and had been owned by the wife of Confederate general Robert E. Lee.

The truth is a local church donated the piano when Hot Lake operated as a nursing home in the 1950s or 1960s.

“I was there when the piano was brought in,” Roth said.

He also said there is no evidence indicating the piano was ever owned by Lee’s wife, Mary Anna Randolph Custis Lee, or that it played itself.

Tribes pass on camping at Hot Lake

Roth’s book also contains material regarding a minor controversy over whether American Indians once had encampments at Hot Lake. The author said that for years he believed reports indicating the tribes once used the Hot Lake area as a place to treat the sick and wounded.

Roth said several 1914 newspaper articles he recently found about Hot Lake gave him reason to reevaluate his initial assumption. They indicate tribes did not have encampments at Hot Lake in part because that would have put them at risk of attack from other tribes.

On the other side of the issue, Roth said his father, A.J. Roth, told him that his friend, Jim Kash Kash, a Cayuse-Nez Perce Indian, said all of the Grande Ronde Valley belonged to the Cayuse and a battle was never fought here. Kash Kash, who died in 1951, told Richard Roth’s father when one tribe was using the lake for the benefit of their sick, the other tribes would not attack.

Richard Roth is not taking sides on this issue, stating in his latest book it is up to readers to decide.

“You be the judge!” wrote Roth, who is a retired health care executive.

The second edition of “Hot Lake — A Short Story” is the fourth book Roth has written about Hot Lake. The 46-page book is designed to give readers a quick overview.

“It is a snapshot,” Roth said.

If you are interested in learning more about the book, call 360-893-3101 or send an email to Roth at randbroth@comcast.net.