Sulfur Baths Are Gone, but Owner Hangs On

Except for the moan of the wind along the eaves of Craig (Fuzzy) Lewis’ weather-beaten tin-roofed shack, it is as quiet as a country graveyard up here at the old Coalinga Sulphur Baths.

And it’s been that way ever since the 2,000-barrel-a-day oil well started going dry a quarter of a century ago, forcing the bath operation to shut down.

Today, the old well, which produced 118-degree water since 1912, yields nary a drop. Lewis has to haul water up from town for his personal use.

‘Not a Drop’

“I tried to drill a well some years ago. Went down 245 feet, but not a drop,” Lewis said.

Except for a few trespassers, hardly anybody comes up the winding, 1 1/2-mile one-way road to the spa about 500 feet above Coalinga in western Fresno County. Lewis’ daughter and grandson make the pilgrimage a couple of times a year.

Old Pat, the grizzled spa handyman, went to his reward a good many years ago. The rusty trailer where he hung his hat sits empty. And hopefully, there’s lots of whiskey up there because there sure wasn’t anything on this old Earth that he liked better.

“Every time he got paid, down to town he went. And he’s stay until every last cent was gone. Then either he’d walk back up here or I’d go down and get him,” says Lewis, who has lived alone since his wife died a quarter of a century ago.

Back then, folks from the valley floor visited by the dozens, staying for a weekend, perhaps even as long as a week or two, to seek cures for ailments by soaking in the hot sulfur baths.

On Saturday nights when the music quit and the bars closed down the hill on Coalinga’s whiskey row, revelers drove up to continue their party and frolic in the long, 10-foot-deep swimming pool, the hot water relaxing parts of the anatomy that the alcohol didn’t.

Just about everybody in these parts knows Fuzzy Lewis on a first-name basis, and they describe him as just about the last of the colorful oil field Mohicans.

Doesn’t Know His Age

He doesn’t know exactly how old he is because his birth was never recorded.

“But I pre-date the San Francisco earthquake. I was born in Madison, between Clear Lake and Woodlands, and my aunt used to tell me that when the earthquake hit, it toppled me.”

Instead of applying for a teaching job after he graduated from UC Berkeley, Lewis chose to return to Coalinga where his Uncle Beryl was manager of Santa Rosa Oil & Development Co.’s Coalinga Sulphur Baths.

“We decided to buy it. That was 1934, and I’ve been here ever since. I raised three girls in this old house. And we had some good times,” Lewis said.

Just about every morning, Lewis heads down the hill to Coalinga, making Perko’s restaurant his first stop, and from there he takes care of what little business he has to do around town, which some days isn’t much more than shopping for good chewing tobacco and some canned goods.

“I never been much of a cook,” he said with a grin. “I pretty much live out of tin cans.”

He finds life satisfactory up here at the end of the winding, one-lane road.

“I do all right. I’m not particular, and I’m not proud. I just live it out day to day. And no, I don’t ever think about my end ever coming, but I suppose that’s because I figure I got at least 10 years left.”