They want to turn Jacumba Hot Springs into a destination, like Palm Springs. They are looking beyond the present and toward a future that looks more like the glorious past. But Strukel and fellow dreamer Jeff Osbourne, together with their business partner, Corbin Winters, aren’t daunted by all that. And 75% of our city’s violent sexual predators have been relocated here. The town’s only school was shuttered a few years ago. There is no mail carrier or police station. The Wagon Wheel Trailer Park in the middle of town is rumored to have the lowest rent anywhere in San Diego County. Today, residents are among the poorest in San Diego County the average income is $17,589. The bathhouse offered apartments, pools, and a hydrotherapy clinic. In the late ’20s and early ’30s, Jacumba was a tourist destination, thanks largely to its famed healing water: Hollywood types drove down to sit in the town’s hot springs. She could not get it out of her mind, so much so that today, she and her business partners own 80% of the commercial and residential properties in town. One of them, Melissa Strukel, told me that after taking a day trip out here during peak covid, she fell in love with it. Back in early October, I drove out here to meet with the new owners of the Jacumba Hot Springs Hotel. There is magic here I know there is, because I’m not the only one who has fallen under its spell. This is my third visit in a month, and each one has brought a new discovery. I am happy to give some small thing back to this community in return for what it has given me. I am early I need to kill time before I drive down the road, past the library, toward the border fence, and out to the baseball diamond where I will join local volunteers in handing out food through Feeding San Diego. He watches as I park in front of the market. Apart from the border patrol, the only person I see on the street is a man on a bicycle, a cigarette clenched between his lips, dragging a wagon hooked onto the frame of his back wheel. The only “Open” sign is on the Mountain Sage Market. The businesses are shuttered, and have been for years.
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