Why is Soap Lake Special?
Because our "Mud" is special.

So special -- other cities in Washington are jealous.  Yes that's right jealous because —

If the knowledge of our sun, fun, water and mud ever got out to the public, nobody would go to their towns.

But with the help of the Internet, this is our opportunity to shout to the world, you won't find another lake like us on the planet.

Like the picture says "It's the Water" and our mud!

Yes, you read that right "the mud" —
no joke, our mud is the best.
The Indians who camped on Soap Lake
before the "white men" even knew it existed
called it — Smokiam — which means "healing waters."

In fact, there is an old indian legend -- they placed a dead Indian Chief in the Lake and two weeks later, he came walking out of it.

Now granted this might be a slight exaggeration but the Indians did build temporary hot houses, using basalt rocks on a fire, smearing the mud on all over their bodies and then pouring the lake water over themselves at regular intervals as a treatment for various skin disorders.

You can do the same when you come to Soap Lake.  Maybe not build the hot houses or fires but laying on the beach in 80 to 90 degree heat while covered in mud on either the East or West Beach is encouraged.  Local youths will even gather buckets of mud for you if you don't want to do it yourself.

Photo courtesy of © Victoria LaVelle

Yes indeed, we get visitors from all over the world who come each year just to enjoy the benefits of the mud and the water for their skin diseases.  In fact, they've been known to get containers and ship it home!

The Chamber has a cabinet full of old letters along with documented proof Soap Lake had a sanitarium for Buerger's Disease (a form of gangrene) in the early 1920's and people who smeared the mud on their bodies and soaked in the water, were cured. A lot of people with psoriasis find our water, sun and mud very helpful.

Why is our water so special?