Healing Waters in Texas
In this age of self-care, when traveling is less often a quest for the exotic, and more a means to unplug from nagging work obligations and the siren call of social media, a quiet dip in a natural spring may be just what you're looking for on your next day off.
Resist the urge to snap a selfie. The healing properties of these historic spots depend on your undivided attention.
Touching Grass
"Her healing waters are better than the mixtures of the pharmacists. Her mud baths are more healing than the plasters of the laboratory. Her touch has virtue in it.
Scientific Germany is sending her patients out into the dew barefooted that the cooling virtue of a morning 'run at grass' may hypodermically inject strength through the pores of the sole. But scientific mind has long since discovered that nature ministers 'even more through the pores of the soul. Mother Earth is an unknown mother."
San Antonio Sunday Light, May 13, 1900
Ancient Healing
The curative properties of natural springs aren't a Texan discovery, much as we'd like to think so. The Greeks built altars to the gods near sacred springs, which were often characterized by their distinctive smell or color. Even then, the afflicted would leave devotions such as crutches and bandages at the altars, alluding to the godly forces at work in the water.
Romans, ever the innovators (think roads, calendars, and central heating) seized on the popularity of communal bathing and constructed hundreds of bathhouses across the empire, trading modest tubs for luxurious spas that offered wealthy bathers an assortment of rooms with varying water temperatures and forms of recreation.
What's Old is New Again
Subject to the squeamishness of guests, public bathhouses surged or dipped in popularity depending on which plague had taken hold of the population. Even still, bathhouse patronage continued to serve as a marker of social status in Europe well into the 1700s. And while the sacred nature of springs was well established among the Native populations of North America, it was the Europeans who introduced formal bathing culture to the continent, though it was likely far more Puritan than whatever the Romans were doing.
While many springs, such as those in Texas, were well-established watering holes that had been utilized by prehistoric peoples, other springs gained their notoriety over the anecdotal evidence submitted by ordinary folks. Skin lesions miraculously healed. Stomach troubles vanished. All who indulged in "taking the waters" emerged better for having done so.
Doctor's Orders
By the 19th century, a good, old fashioned dip in a spring fell to the entrepreneurial nature of man who recognized that there was money to be made in the healthcare industry. Soon, modest campgrounds beside public springs gave way to extravagant resorts that promised both pleasure and healing. Physicians were asked to publicly attest to the curative power of certain water sources, while geologists were solicited to test their minerality. Expert testimony was good for business.
Simultaneously, a new market for healing waters emerged as resort owners began advertising their locales as "nature's sanitariums." Before long, medical clinics were integrated with resorts to treat patrons afflicted with critical diseases such as polio or tuberculosis, further blurring the lines between medicine and holistic healing.
So, what happened to the bathhouses?
The establishment of healing resorts near mineral springs and wells in Texas peaked from approximately 1890 to 1920. As buildings built during this time often did, many resorts succumbed to fire; in other cases, springs simply dried up, expedited no doubt by suburban development.
Surprisingly, the introduction of the automobile was a boon for out-of-the-way resorts and a burden for small-town spas, as bathers could now venture further afield to partake of a particular spring or a certain level of luxury. The traveler's newly discerning tastes spelled doom for the little guy and his little well.
Active Healing Springs Across Texas
Hancock Springs Park
Located along the Sulphur Creek branch of the Lampasas River, the mineral springs in Lampasas…
Chinati Hot Springs
Formerly known as Kingston Hot Springs, or Ruidosa Hot Springs, these mineral springs have a…
Hot Wells of Bexar County
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a series of health spas and resorts…
Hot Springs Historic District — Big Bend National Park
In 1909, J.O. Langford, suffering from malaria, traveled to this area at the confluence of…
The Famous Mineral Water Company
CRAZY WELL Who can ever get enough of a good thing? Especially when it comes…
Indian Hot Springs
Note: Indian Hot Springs is now privately owned. It was listed on the National Register…
Sulphur Springs Camp
As early as 1858, locals were touting the "extraordinary cures from the water" at Sulphur…
Is your favorite spring missing?
Several natural springs, such as Balmorhea State Park and Barton Springs Pool, were omitted from the above list due to the fact that while they are historic and bountiful in many other ways, the low minerality of their waters meant that they were never widely regarded for their curative properties and were therefore never promoted as such.
Acknowledgements
Much of the history referenced in this post was sourced from a single resource, Taking the Waters in Texas: Springs, Spas, and Fountains of Youth by Janet Mace Valenza. This book is an exhaustive and invaluable history of mineral bathing culture in Texas.