The Saratoga area of the Santa Cruz mountain was once touted as having the purest most medicinal hot spring water in the area (similar in properties as that of Saratoga Springs, NY). Near the junction of Pierce Road and Azule Road (now Mount Eden Road), Arthur Caldwell originally discovered the soda spring water coming from a sandstone crevice on his ranch in the 1870s. Later the ranch was sold to Luther R. Mills and he bottled the water under the name 'Mills Seltzer Springs'.
Finally, L. A. Spitzer bought the property and proprietor John W. Ryland captured water from these springs and bottled them. The 'azul' (blue in spanish) colored bottles were sculpted with a trademarked grizzly bear.
Advertising
The Azule waters were touted as treatments for 'ailments of the liver, kidney and stomach'
Some of the remaining pictures of the Azule Seltzer Springs of that era. Current the property is a private residence.
Locations
Azule Selter Water had a shop for distribution in downtown San Jose. It was next to the intersection of North San Pedro Street and Ryland Street.
Locations:
Azule Seltzer Springs
37.267465, -122.059783 Near the intersection of Mount Eden Raod and Damon Lane
Azule Water Works store
37.341230, -121.897451
Near where North San Pedro St and Ryland would intersect
Sources:
Brainard Maps SCC, 1880
Azule Seltzer Springs, San Jose City Directory, 1887
Daily morning times 22 November 1884
San Jose Herald, 15 March 1886
San Jose Mercury News, January 1, 1892.
San Jose Mercury, 19 June 1893
19th Century San Jose in a Bottle
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