"Track Athletics in California," illustration from Overland Monthly, 1892. Larger.
Long before the heyday of 24-7 fitness centers, San Franciscans with a taste for physical culture could attend the Olympic Club, to pump some iron and maybe even get a haircut.
In 1855, two German brothers, Charles and Arthur Nhal, gave lessons in physical fitness in their backyard, the foundation for San Francisco's Olympic Club. In 1893, the club opened a state-of-the art athletic clubhouse. Journalist Philip L. Weaver, Jr. got a preview.
"Horace Coffin Walks a Mile in 6:48 3-5," illustration from Overland Monthly, 1892. Larger.
Perhaps the most startling innovation is a large warm water swimming tank on the basement floor, fifty by eighty-five feet, to be filled with salt water, brought in from the ocean. Above this there is a light shaft roofed with glass, around the top story of which are to be grouped potted plants, palms and vines. Beside the tank, the basement is to have lockers, bowling alleys, bicycles store room, shampoo room, barber shop, and graded hot rooms for Turkish baths. . . . It is difficult to conceive a more perfect building in all its equipment, —a veritable athlete's paradise.
The Olympic Club in San Francisco is America's oldest athletic club.
–Contributed by Stephanie Wilson.
Taking the Water
From "As Seen Over the Handlebars," 1896. Read Online
"Resting the Wheel," photograph by Carpenter, 1896. Larger.
Naturally carbonated mineral springs are found throughout California. Bathing in such springs is a tradition that goes back to the Romans.
When bathing in mineral springs became fashionable in the old west, California's Soda Bay provided journalist Philip Weaver the opportunity to indulge—with some surprising results.
A small landing extends into the lake, from which [I] embarked in a small boat toward a small white house, apparently floating about a hundred yards out in the lake. It proved to be built upon a rock, near the surface of the water, out of a pit in which warm soda water boiled up in a flow about a foot in diameter with sufficient force to rise a few inches above the surfaceÖThe proper bath to take is to stand in the mouth of the spring, neck deep, and let the warm soda effervesce on the skin. It is as good as a champagne bath, without the chill. The tingling sensation is delightfully novel. I have tried nearly all the important springs from Shasta to Coronado, and this surpasses them all for novelty in bathing. The carbonic acid gas is so strong, however, that one can remain but a moment breathing the fumes before the pleasant faintness of laughing gas warns one to give the next man a chance till the effect wears off.
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