The Buckhorn Baths
Mesa’s only mineral hot springs and spa. Home to a museum featuring the largest collection of preserved Arizona wildlife. The giant assemblage of Indian metates built into decorative walls. The cradle of Arizona’s Cactus League baseball. These and other exceptional attributes make the 15-acre Buckhorn Bath’s one of the nation’s most unique historic sites. With the death of its co-founder in 2010, this property listed on the National Register of Historic Places is now one of the most endangered properties in Arizona – a fact acknowledged by the Society for Commercial Archeology in 2010. Founded by Ted & Alice Sliger in 1936 and opened for business three years later, the Buckhorn remained for the next 60 years one of the region’s most popular and well-known attraction. The Buckhorn represents an early attempt at recycling – Ted Sliger assembled his first building using bricks salvaged from a demolished school constructed in 1894. The Buckhorn’s rise to prominence started in 1947 when it began attracting baseball players from Ty Cobb to Willie Mays to its therapeutic mineral baths. It remained important to the Cactus League until it closed in 1999. Overwhelming public support for the estimated $8 million restoration propels the project forward.
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