The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1902-07-20
Some of the Birmingham Peo-
pie Who Are Spending the
Summer at This Charming
Resort and Their Customs.
Artistic Home Effects Produced
byJapaneseL anternS-0riveS
Around the Various Springs
and the Drivers.
BY ANNIE KENDRIck WALKER.

BY ANNIE KENDRicK WALKER.
Comfort Cottage, st. Clair Springs,
Ala, July 1s.-tSpecial 1.-The cottage CO.
lony and the summer guests in the hotel
instead of discussing the latest scandal
or the last arrival are talking of the
great change which st. Clair seems des-
tined to undergo now that the st. Clair
Springs Stock Company has been formed
and brought up everything but the rail-
road.
The company has been capitalized at
100000, the stockholders to include men
who are interested in developing the most
beautiful and healthful section of Ala
bama. A number of Birmingham most
representative men have taken stock in
the company, and prominent men in va
rious parts of the State will augment the
number Of stockholders.
Mr.. Edward Wilkinson of Birmingham
is president of the company, and Mr.. A.
L. Fulenwider and Mr.. Lee Bradley of
Birmingham are the next largest stock
holders.
The st. Clair Springs property includes
about twelve hundred acres of magnifi-
cent woodland and the possibilities of the
place are limited. In the autumn work
will be begun on a new hotel which
will be erected at cost of $4,000. The
present hotel will be moved back and
utilized for other purposes. The plans
for the new hotel have not been COM
pleted, but it is proposed to make it
thoroughly modern in every way. The
location has been selected with an eye
to its picturesqueness as we'll as to the
exposure and its proximity to the springs.
All the women here are interested in
the plans, since the hotel will have a
private bath room to every suite They
say that they could do without electric
lights, and almost everything else, if the
hotel will have the luxury of private bath
rooms. So many of the women here
really prefer softly shaded lamps on the
balcony and in their rooms in prefer
enee to the white glare of an electric
light and several women here soften
the lights at their cottages by putting
Japanese lanterns over the lamps.
l cannot attempt to say how many
things there are because / have not
bothered with any of the stockholders.
All that I am writing is what l am hear
ing on this charming veranda, instead
VI u iOl u ioWA BOSS1p. But L KNOW
there are nine different kinds of water,
with wonderful curative powers. There
are several kinds of sulphur water and
a coal blush kind of water that tastes
exactly like the famous Blue Lick
There is an iron spring and other chaly-
beate waters, all of which have been
analysed by experts and pronounced to
possess fine medicinal properties But
of course while everything that the ex-
perts say might influence the stockhold-
ers, without the women who bring their
children here every summer think of the
iinvigorating qualities of the waters and
the climate should weigh more than
anything the water experts might say
There is a charming woman here who
said today that she had lived in six
states and had visited the summer re-
sorts in nineteen states, but that she
had never been as benefited as she has
been by the waters and the climate of st.
Clair. All of us here thought that was a
great deal to say about an Alabama sum-
mer place, especially since so many Ala
bama people are always dep1oring that
they are forced to go out of the state
every summer
Every one who has driven over from
the little station to the springs will be
glad to know that among the first things
to be done will be towards improving the
roadway. There are so many beauti-
full country drives around st. Clair and
the guests here who had their traps sent
out from town drive for miles every aft
ernoon just about the hour they would
drive to the Country Club. 1t is simply
perfect these late afternoons and the
charming twilights that they have up
here are so still that 1t 1t as Amelle
Rives would say that the beneficence Of