Saint Leon Hot Springs

Saint Leon Hot Springs is a hot spring and former resort community located near the head of Upper Arrow Lake in the Columbia Country-West Kootenay region of southeastern British Columbia, Canada. The townsite also was referred to by the simplified form of the name, St. Leon.

The townsite was first settled by Michael M. Grady of Revelstoke with the construction of a hotel in 1894, soon replaced by a larger and nicer establishment in 1901. In the opening year of World War I, Grady closed the hotel and severed its pipeline from the springs due to bankruptcy from a collapse in the tourist trade. Revelstoke residents begged him to begin a townsite where they could partake of the springs directly, which he did in 1918, with 10 cottages built shortly thereafter by new residents while others built more later on. [ [http://ilmbwww.gov.bc.ca/bcgn-bin/bcg10?name=13584 BCGNIS listing "St. Leon Hot Springs"] ] [ [http://ilmbwww.gov.bc.ca/bcgn-bin/bcg10?name=50706 BCGNIS listing "St. Leon"] ]

The name St. Leon is stated by the Akriggs in their work on British Columbia placenames that an early hunter and trapper in the area named it after St.-Pol-de-Leon, Finistère, France, where he had relatives. [Helen B. & G.P.V. Akrigg, "British Columbia Place Names"; Sono Nis Press, Victoria 1986 /or University of British Columbia Press 1997] Another account says the name is derived from that of St. Leon, Quebec.

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