Givens Hot Springs

Givens Hot Springs is one of Idaho’s oldest working soaks: a family run geothermal resort on the south bank of the Snake River, on State Highway 78 about 12 miles southwest of Marsing.

Oregon Trail pioneers Milford and Mattie Givens claimed this ground in 1881, their descendants and successors have run a bathing place here ever since, and the resort today centers on a big geothermal swimming pool in the structure built in 1952, with grassy RV and tent camping, picnic park areas, and an event center wrapped around it. The water is the draw the resort’s own history page leads with: naturally soft, constantly flowing hot spring mineral water, in use at this spot since before Idaho was a state.

Plan on a simple, old fashioned day. The pool is open every day from noon to 9 pm, swim fees are published and modest, campers get a day of swimming with each night they stay, and the whole place runs at an unhurried pace that reviewers tend to describe as dated in the affectionate sense. This is a working piece of Snake River plain history that still takes swimmers, not a polished spa, and it is priced like it.

Soak Stats

Place Information

Location, Map & Directions

From Marsing, take State Highway 78 south and west along the Snake River for about 12 miles; the resort sits right on the highway at 11309 Highway 78, below the Owyhee foothills on the river’s south bank. From Nampa the drive is about 20 miles south. There is no turnoff puzzle here: the entrance sign, the covered wagon on display by the historical markers, and the pool building are all visible from the road. The settlement around the resort is the unincorporated community of Givens Hot Springs, which the federal names record places at about 2,273 feet.

The Soaking Experience

The pool is the centerpiece, a large swimming pool filled with spring water that current guides put at about 100 °F, warm enough for a long, lazy swim in any season. The spring source itself is far hotter: the federal thermal springs list carries a maximum of 117 °F, and the USGS GEOTHERM file reads 49 °C, about 120 °F, so the water is cooled before it reaches swimmers.

The operator requires regular swimsuits (no T-shirts or street clothes in the water), swim diapers for children age 2 and under, and an adult in the water with every child age 12 and under, at a maximum of three children per adult. Beyond the pool, the park areas spread out under shade trees with tables and fire pits, and they are part of the day for anyone who has paid to swim or camp.

Fees, Hours & Reservations

Hours and prices below are the operator’s own published figures, read from the resort’s services page on November 11, 2026. The pool is open noon to 9 pm, seven days a week; one current guide lists closures on Thanksgiving Day and December 24 and 25, and the operator posts any exceptions on its own site, so check there before a holiday trip.

Swimming costs $12 for adults (ages 13 to 59), $6 for children (ages 3 to 12) and seniors (ages 60 to 90), and is free for children age 2 and under and seniors over 90. Swim admission is first come; reservations apply to camping, reserved swims, and the event center, held with a card number and a $50 non refundable deposit. For reserved swims and group questions the operator names its contacts on the services page: ask for Guy or Nadine at 208-495-2000.

Facilities, Lodging & Nearby

Staying the night means camping; the resort’s housing units are no longer available for public use, per the operator. RV sites with electric and hot water hookups are $60 per night and dry camping is $40 (a single person in a tent pays $30), based on two people per unit with each additional person $10. Each night of camping includes one calendar day of swimming, and an extra swim day beyond the nights paid is half the regular price.

Picnic tables are first come, campfires are allowed in the fire pits, firewood bundles are $10, and quiet time runs 11 pm to 8 am. The event center, with lights, a refrigerator and cooler, a sink with hot water, and picnic table seating, rents for $200 for a day and $150 for each additional day, which makes the grounds a working reunion and group site as well as a soak. One practical note from the operator: all of the water on site is hot, so campers may want to bring drinking water or buy chilled bottles at the snack bar for $2.

History

The springs were a stopping place long before the resort. Idaho Historical Society marker 358 at the site records a Native winter village of about 5,000 years, pit houses dated about 4,300 to 1,200 years ago, Great Basin tribal use, and Oregon Trail emigrants watering and resting here after 1842 on the South Alternate Route.

The written settler record begins with Milford and Martha (Mattie) Shirley Givens, who left Missouri in 1878 on the Oregon Trail and, in the words of the family’s 2011 marker at the pool entrance, reached this ground and stayed: in the spring of 1881 they took up squatter’s rights on 154 and a half acres that included two hot springs and Snake River bank land, built a two story house, and planted shade and fruit trees. The place became a bathing and laundry stop for Silver City miners, neighbors, and trail travelers.

The claim nearly slipped away in 1889, when a family trip to Portland left the ground open to a rival filing; Mattie’s brother Tim Shirley filed homestead rights at Silver City, President Grover Cleveland recognized the claim on December 19, 1894, and Tim deeded the land to Mattie the following year. With the four Givens sons, Berry, Granville, Guy and Jess, the family built the resort: a bathhouse with private soaking rooms in the early 1900s and a hotel in 1903 with a restaurant, ice cream parlor, and picnic grounds, later adding a barbershop and a post office.

The Givens Hot Springs School opened in 1907 for the family and neighboring children. The hotel burned in 1939; the pool house survived and kept operating until the current pool structure replaced it in 1952. The resort has stayed in family hands in the generations since, bought back in 1991 by a great grandson of Milford and Mattie and his wife, per the family’s own account, and it still trades on the same promise the marker makers carved in 2011: hot water, shade trees, and a place to rest on the river.

Safety & Health

The swim water is tempered to about 100 °F, but it is still hot spring water: test it as you get in, keep soaks moderate on a first visit, and watch children closely, as the operator’s own adult in the water rule requires. The source spring on the grounds runs far hotter than the pool and is not a soaking spot.

Best Time to Visit

Any day of the year, by the operator’s published schedule: the pool keeps the same noon to 9 pm hours in every season, and a 100 degree pool on the Snake River plain is as good in January as in July. Summer weekends bring the camping and reunion crowds; a weekday afternoon is the quiet version of the same soak.

Nearby Hot Springs

The nearest full developed listing is Roystone Hot Springs near Sweet, about 40 straight line miles northeast, another small family soak with a long local history. North again from there, The Springs Resort in Idaho City is the reservation based developed option in the Boise mountains. More South-Central Idaho hot springs →