Several water wells drilled in the Hawthorne area prior to 1979 had reported water temperatures of 24-51°C. According to Trexler and others (1981), thermal fluids were first discovered in the 1940s and 1950s when wells were drilled on U.S. Navy property. The wells are from 122 to 183 m deep, and the deepest well penetrated sandstone gravels to a total depth of 183.5 m (Scott and Barker, 1962; Everett and Rush, 1967). Water wells with the higher temperatures seem to be located closer to the frontal fault along the east side of the Wassuk Range. Shallow (2-m) temperature probe surveys (Trexler and others, 1981) have outlined two areas of anomalous temperatures in the Hawthorne area: 1) west of Hawthorne along the front of the Wassuk Range in Secs. 19, 20, 29, and 32, T8N, R30E, and 2) southeast of Hawthorne in Sec. 35, T8N, R31E and Secs. 4, 5, 9, T7NR31E. A test well in the area west of Hawthorne recorded temperatures over 80°C and temperatures greater than 60°C were recorded in a test well in the area southeast of Hawthorne (Trexler and others, 1981). GeothermEx (2004 ,Fig. HAW002) reported several wells in the area west of the town to have temperatures between 47 and 93ºC. In May 1980, The El Capitan Casino hit hot water while drilling a well south of Hawthorne (NW¼ SW¼ Sec. 33, T8N, R30E). The well had a reported temperature of 99°C, a total depth of 305 m, and was perforated from 152 to 305 m (Reno Gazette-Journal, May 13, 1980; Dennis Trexler, oral commun., 1980). Several studies were done to evaluate the feasibility of heating the casino and other Hawthorne buildings with the geothermal fluids, but no facilities were constructed. In 2006 the Mt Grant General Hospital received $25,000 for a feasibility study and engineering assistance in replacing its fossil-fuel fired heating system with geothermal. The GeoHeat Center (Klammath Falls) is the technical consultant on the project.