Postcard: New West Baden Springs Hotel Swimming Pool, (IN) Indiana - galleries

Description

Postcard: New West Baden Springs Hotel Swimming Pool, (IN) Indiana. - Postmark 1911
Condition: poor; tear on lower right, edge and corner wear.
"After a 1901 fire destroyed the original West Baden Springs Hotel, located a mile north of Taggart’s French Lick hotel, owner Lee Sinclair built the hotel of his dreams on the same site—a circular building, topped by an immense dome and decorated like the grandest spas of Europe. Architect Harrison Albright accepted Sinclair’s challenge to complete the building within a year.
Opened in 1902 and billed as “The Eighth Wonder of the World,” the hotel featured an atrium—200 feet across by 100 feet tall—a space that remained the world’s largest free span dome until Houston’s Astrodome was constructed in the 1960s.
As at French Lick, the wealthy and famous—and more rarely the infamous, including gangsters—came to take the waters and gamble during the first three decades of the 20th century, often booking lengthy stays. West Baden’s own brand, Sprudel Water, reputedly cured or improved nearly all diseases and afflictions. Guests could drink and bathe in the water in the hotel and in several elegant springs pavilions arranged around the sunken garden."