|
- In 1803
when Dr. John Anderson placed the first stone for what was to
become the Bedford Springs Hotel, he laid the foundation for
more than a building. What has emerged is a rich repository of
local, regional and national history.
-
- Bedford
Springs, with its majestic buildings, towering wooded hills,
narrow valley, glistening stream and many mineral springs, became
renowned beginning in the 19th century as a fashionable place
for recuperation, relaxation and leisure. Its medicinal springs
rivaled those of Carlsbad in Europe. People traveled to the Springs
from East Coast cities and points west, first by stagecoach,
then train, and later by automobile. Its mineral waters, grandeur
and bucolic location brought presidents, generals, orators, statesmen,
and the business and social elite to its doors.
-
- President
James Buchanan visited the Bedford Springs Hotel from 1816 until
his death in 1867, coinciding with his tenure as Congressman,
Senator, Minister to Russia, Minister to England, Secretary of
State and President (1857-1861).
-
- From the
hotel President Buchanan exchanged messages with England’s
Queen Victoria via the first transatlantic cables (1858), received
the Nicaraguan minister to the United States and announced his
decision not to run for a second term in office. The Springs
was the Summer White House from 1857 to 1861. He had a daily
mail pouch sent to him from Washington in order to conduct the
country’s business from the Springs. According to the hotel’s
ledgers, President Buchanan often brought along his cabinet officials.
-
- Presidents
James K. Polk, Zachary Taylor, William Henry Harrison, John Tyler,
James Garfield, Dwight D. Eisenhower and Ronald Reagan also visited
the Springs. Other prominent visitors included Mrs. John Quincy
Adams and her daughters, Miss J. And Miss H. Adams, Aaron Burr,
Henry Clay, John C. Calhoun, Simon Cameron, President Lincoln’s
Secretary of War and later his son James Cameron, who was Secretary
of War under President Grant, Jay Gould, Thaddeus Stevens, Henry
Ford, Samuel Wanamaker, Henry Clay Frick and members of the Pennsylvania
and the United States Supreme Court. Mary Todd Lincoln made a
reference to Bedford Springs in her diary. Research is underway
to learn whether she visited the Springs.
-
- The town
of Bedford’s connection after 1872 to the Baltimore &
Ohio Railroad via Hyndman, PA in the southern part of the county,
and the Pennsylvania Railroad via the Huntingdon and East Broad
Top tracks from the county’s northeast, improved national
accessibility to the Springs without rail travel’s smoke,
noise and grit. The resort was just a mile and a half carriage
ride away from town. Hotel profits doubled the following year.
Each season the railroads ran "Bedford Springs" specials
and the Pennsylvania Railroad, the national’s largest and
most powerful corporation, sought, but failed, to purchase the
resort as an entertainment center in 1875.
-
- By the
mid 1870's, the resort had expanded to 2400 acres and became
popular with wealthy Pittsburgh families who, like others, prized
the secluded setting and curative waters as an escape from the
city and corporate business world. It was the custom for people
to spend weeks, even months, at the Springs, bringing their families,
servants, carriages and horses. To accommodate these retinues,
large dormitories were built adjacent to the guest quarters,
and stables were maintained for the horses. The colored servants
were lodged at the Negro hotel in Bedford owned by the Harris
family.
-
- New analyses
in the 1880's touted the medical benefits of the Springs’
five different kinds of water, and national marketing of bottled
water heightened the resort’s prominence. Bottles and barrels
of the prized waters were shipped throughout the United States
and to Cuba.
-
- The resort’s
layout and architecture in the late 1800's reflected the Victorian
era’s romantic conceptions of nature, order and beauty.
Steeply wooded hills, a stream, narrow valley and seven mineral
springs created an opportunity for solitude, relaxation and rejuvenation.
-
- Extensive
modifications between 1903 and 1906 by new owners transformed
the hotel into a modern resort while respecting its historic
and architectural character. The crowning achievement was the
Pool Building, which contained a 63' x 28' mineral water-fed
pool, solarium and individual hydrotherapy rooms. Other modifications
remodeled interior spaces to accommodate a growing convention
trade. After World War I, Bedford Springs as a spa declined in
importance, but remained active as a resort.
-
- Bedford
Springs saw service during World War II. From April 1942 through
December 1944, it served as a U.S. Naval Radio School where between
6000 and 7000 men took an intensive 20-week training course.
The hotel grounds and golf course saw active duty with intramural
sports and military drills. Following the Naval School’s
closing, the State Department, attracted by the Springs’
proximity to Washington, converted the hotel to an internment
camp for 180 high-level Japanese diplomats and their families
captured in Germany near the war’s end.
-
- Bolstered
by increased automobile and tourist trade, the resort resumed
guest operations in the post war years. Bedford Springs run as
a resort ended in the mid 1980's when poor management decisions
forced the hotel into receivership. Since that time, several
attempts to restore the Springs have failed because of financial
reasons.
-
- For nearly
200 years, Bedford Springs had been the pulse of Bedford County.
It thrived as did the local economy. In 1991 the Springs was
designated a National Historic Landmark.
-
- "The
Springs is one of the most significant hotels/spas in the US
because of its history and the number of presidents and other
important dignitaries that visited there," says Pioneer
Historical Society President William Defibaugh. "Locally,
it is important to Bedford County because of the commerce and
the personal history of Bedford Countians who worked at the Springs."
The magnificent mountain resort in the Alleghenies is a priceless
gem of America’s past.
|
