French Lick Resort Unearths Historical Artifact from the 1800s

French Lick Resort announced that they rediscovered a piece of history after over 100 years. Wait until you see what it is.

French Lick Resort and West Baden Springs Hotel have a lot of history between the two buildings. However, last week a piece of forgotten history was unearthed between the two tourist attractions in French Lick.

How It Started

In an article on French Lick Resort's website, it was revealed that crews were moving some dirt for the Bowling & Billiard Pavilion, a historic outbuilding in the West Baden Springs Hotel Gardens that is in the process of being renovated. They decided to start digging in an overgrown-grassy area when they found "a network of concrete walking paths."

French Lick Resort

These pathways led the crew to an area of standing water. Where they had a feeling that they knew what was beneath the water and mud.

French Lick Resort

So the crews began to dig. Once they started draining the water and digging out the dirt, what was underneath began to appear. To their amazement, they had unearthed a piece of the hotel's past that had been gone for over 100 years.

French Lick Resort

What Did They Rediscover?

Once everything was cleared, they discovered a series of steps leading to a basin that was once one of the four mineral springs on the West Baden Springs Hotel property. After over 100 years, Neptune Spring was unearthed. This is a place where guests would "take the waters" in the early 1900s.

French Lick Resort

According to an article on French Lick Resort's website:

These are the “guts” of the Neptune Spring, or Spring No. 5 as it was also known back in the day. (West Baden used a clever marketing ruse — their four springs were numbered 1, 3, 5 and 7 to give the impression they outranked French Lick Springs Hotel, which had three mineral water springs.) The steps of this basin used to be surrounded by an intricate wooden structure topped with an “onion” shaped dome.

French Lick Resort

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Neptune Spring's History

The article goes on to say that Neptune Spring was built around 1892 and was removed in the late 1910s due to the structure becoming fragile. All of the other springs nearby at West Baden were capped, and they thought that this might be the only remaining spring that is still active.

French Lick Resort

Once they cleaned up the area, the water level began to rise and the spring appeared to still be flowing.

French Lick Resort plans to renovate the walking paths that lead to Neptune Spring and continue to clean the area up. The resort also says that they will hopefully have this area open to explore, "in time."

(H/T- French Lick Resort)

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