In 1936, Ted Sliger's store and
lunch counter in Mesa, "Desert Wells", burned down, destroying his collection of taxidermy, except for one
buckhorn deer, which was on loan. He and his wife, Alice, bought a property in the open desert outside of Mesa – they would eventually add parcels of land to the west and north – bought a house from a neighbor and had it moved to the property. The constructed a store from bricks scavenged from a demolished Mesa school, from which they sold gasoline and a variety of products, including groceries, hunting and fishing licenses, fishing tackle, and Native American jewelry and rugs. In 1938 they expanded the store in order to display Ted's taxidermy work – a service he provided to hunters and fisherman; this would evolve into a "Wildlife Museum" with over 400 specimens. Because they had to haul in all of their drinking water, in 1939 the Sligers sunk a well, but the water they struck was mineral water. To exploit their new find, they build a bathhouse with the capacity of 75 people, and cottages to accommodate those who wished to stay overnight. They named their business "Buckhorn", after the one piece of Ted's taxidermy which had been saved from the fire. At the time, mineral spring were very popular in the U.S. due to their supposedly curative value, and to the social status which came from "taking the waters" at many of the spas. In the desert west, especially, where people came to take advantage of the hot dry climate in tending to their respiratory problems, such as
asthma and
tuberculosis, the appeal of such mineral water treatments was a natural fit. The sliger's advertised their resort in 1950 as "beneficial in the treatment of arthritis, neuritis, neuralgia, gout, anemia, sciatic, overweight, underweight, high blood pressure, nicotine poisoning, blood and skin diseases, kidney, bladder and liver troubles, chronically nervous and exhausted, inflammatory rheumatism, stomach disorders [and] rehabilitation following: strokes, polio, fratures. Also good for muscle toning and reconditioning." The motel became a
Greyhound bus depot in 1942, and in 1947 the
New York Giants baseball selected the Buckhorn for their base of operations during
spring training. The bus depot closed in 1972, the same year that the Giants moved to a hotel in
Casa Grande. ==Recent==