Bowers Mansion is a recreational park located to the west of Washoe Lake and developed around a mansion built in 1864 by Sandy Bowers, a prosperous miner on the Comstock Lode. The restored two-story sandstone structure is operated by the Washoe County Department of Parks and Recreation. Two swimming pools are open to the public during the summer season.
The hot spring has been utilized for the swimming pools in the past, but is now used for irrigation (Peterson, 1976). In 1962 an attempt to drill a cold-water well encountered 47°C water at 63 m, and this well now supplies the thermal water for an Olympic-size pool and a 4.5- by 7.5-m pool for younger children. The pool waters are reduced to 24-25.5°C by addition of 12°C water from Riter Springs, about 1.7 km northwest of the mansion. Warm water from a well at a nearby private home is also used in a swimming pool (Reno Gazette Journal, Real Estate Section, November 29, 2003). The estimated reservoir temperature is 100±20ºC according to silica geothermometry (Lyles, 1985, p. 73).
The hot spring issues from the granodiorite-alluvium contact, which is an obvious fault scarp along the east side of the Carson Range. The hot water well probably intersects this same normal fault at depth. The geology of the area has been mapped by Tabor and Ellen (1975).