The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-05-05
.OLD AND NEW IN THE OLD DOMINION Then and Now in the Famous
 Springs District A GREAT AUGMENTATION A Landlord Who Charged Only For the Spring Water and
 Threw In the Meals
 Gratis.
 
GREAT REMUNERATION

NdSnlnSlOi, May 4-Ine meeting or
 north and south in the vacation seasons
 is probably doing as much as any other
 one factor to remove the last vestige of
 differences between the sections. In the
 present rejuvenation of the old state of
 Virginia, which Is being watched with es-
 pecial interest at the seat of government in the District of Columbia, nothing per
 haps is more remarkable than the na-
 tionalization of the whole district of
 world famous springs. which. within a
 very few years, from being a resort most
 ly of well-to-do southerners in the sum
 mer months, when escape from the ter
 rife heat of the cities in the low and
 sandy Atlantic and gulf coastal plain is imperative, has now become playground of the whole country, winter and summer.
 That, of course, is only a part of the
 present revival of interest in the Old
 Dominion. Everywnere there IS an awak-
 ening. some of it due to the Jamestown
 exposition, much more to the general pie
 turesque and historical interests of the section Across the Potomac from Wash
 ngton suburban real estate is in process
 of development. Thomas F. Ryan has
 just purchased Bellevue, one of the most
 famous of Virginian estates. Jefferson
 M. Levy owns Monticello, once Thomas
 Jemerson's home. Many wealthy north
 erners have purchased homes in the old
 est of American commonwealths.
 For those who do not care to buy
 places the attractiveness of the historic
 Dominion increases year by year. In the
 autumn, fall and spring months society
 at all the leading centres of population
 decrees that whoever through too intense
 living runs the risk of getting into hot
 water with his constitution will not un- wisely take the rest and water cure in
 the Virginia mountains, while the many
 old southern families who still go to the
 springs religiously in summer because
 grandparents and great-grandparents
 were espoused there now find that not a few northerners have discovered the
 warm weather charm of the mountains
 and that a gathering in August on the hotel piazzas at Hot Springs is apt to
 be more truly representative of the whole
 country than a similar gathering at Len OK or Bar Harbor.
 The old life, of course of the various springs Hot Warm, Sweet, White Sul- phur, Red Sulphur, Salt Sulphur and l others, has ben materially changed, in | summer as well as at other times of the
 year. It used to be very much of a fam | fly affair. Practically everybody in the | states SOuln Ol hdSDn DlAOH ilhO
 knew every body else and the summer out
 ing in the cool Virginia valleys helped to | keep the whole south united. From short l ly after the season of TIP when the wife l of a well-to-do Virginia planter was 1 brought forty miles over the mountains | to be bathed in mineral waters heated by | hot stones and thus to lose an ailment
 which had baffled the medical skill of
 the time, the annual jaunt to the springs
 was reckoned a conventional part of the southerners year.
 Among the earliest to be developed l of the many resorts of the region were
 the Warm Sulphur Springs, situated five
 miles north of the Homestead Hotel at
 Hot Springs It is recorded that George Washington, travelling with a retinue of | servants from the banks of the Potomac, 1 eamped for six weeks by these springs,
 the virtue of which had already been ex- | tolled by the Indians. Again Thomas Jef- 1 ferson visited the place in 1878. An an- | cient hotel register contains the sigma | lures of large number of notables who 1 found that bathing in the tepid water | gave appetite for cooking of the real
 old Virginia" style.
 | Not that the accommodations in the | early decades of the nineteenth century | were exactly what would nowadays be 1 called luxurious. Conditions even in the
 Warm Springs valley were very primitive
 until the enterprise of up-to-date hotel
 men recently established luxurious bath ing pools, sun parlors, telephone connec- l ton with the entire United States and special stock market telegraphic connec- ton, and similar modern conyeniences The original layout at each of the dozen or more Virginia springs consisted of rude frame hotel and dance hall sur I ..l.1 AfI I@r~ lf ffaC ,tah were dignified with the name of cottages
 The table set at these hostelries was not always impeccable despite general ad- mission that nowhere else were indigesti- bic wafhes and hot bread so readily as- simulated. The diet at some of the re- sorts was, indeed, frequently made the subject of grumbling among the guests Yet the same families returned year after year and pretended to be satisfied with such explanations as that made by one | of the early proprietors of a prominent l hotel who always stated if complaint | was made: "Our charge is for the water; | the meals are thrown in gratis"
 | The water and the air of the region amply justified the existence of the re- I sorts even though their accommoda- | tons would not satisfy the more fastidi- l ous taste of today. Those were times | when every southern family had plenty of servants and didn't mind roughing it for a few weeks, always provided | there were plenty of hands for the
 menial work The beauty and health
 fulness of the valley made amends for | everything else. As an old writer re-
 marked-and thousands of residents of
 our northern cities are now discovering The summer climate of these moun- | tains is extremely delightful. The
 boundless forests on their tops are, in- deed, a target for the clouds, so that | rain often occurs in the days chapter of incidents. But it Is merely a passing shower, a dash of big, fast falling drops. l soon over the hills and far away
 Among the Virginia springs resorts in the thirties and forties Henry Clay of Kentucky was a great social favorite. He used to stop over for weeks at a time en route from Washington to his Kentucky home. With other Congress- men and government officials the Hot and Warm Springs were then as now favorite refuge from the scorching heat of the plains; though for the most