Keough Hot Springs

Keough Hot Springs in California’s Owens Valley, south of Bishop on U.S. Highway 395, has long been significant as both a sacred place to local Paiute people and a later center of recreation and tourism. Philip P. Keough opened the modern resort in August 1918 around a large swimming pool, and it flourished in the 1920s and 1930s as a health resort and social gathering place. Its course changed after the City of Los Angeles bought the property in 1926 as part of wider Owens Valley land and water acquisitions. Despite closures, reopenings, and later renovation, it remained a long-running hot-springs destination reflecting Indigenous history, water politics, and local leisure.

Wilkerson, California · United States