The French Lick Springs Hotel is a major resort hotel that is a part of the French Lick Resort complex in Orange County, Indiana. The historic hotel in the national historic district at French Lick was initially known as a mineral spring health spa and for its trademarked Pluto Water. During the period 1901 to 1946, when Thomas Taggart, a former mayor of Indianapolis, and his son, Thomas D. Taggart, were its owners and operators, the popular hotel attracted many fashionable, wealthy, and notable guests. The resort was a major employer of African-American labor, which mostly came from Kentucky.
In the early 1900s, the hotel had a Negro league baseball team, the French Lick Plutos, and until the 1940s French Lick was a venue for spring training for professional baseball teams. In the 1920s and into the 1930s, the resort became known for its recreational sports, most notably golf, but the French Lick area also had a reputation for illegal gambling. After a series of subsequent owners and renovations, the hotel was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2003. The restored hotel, with its exteriors of distinctive, buff-colored brick, reopened in 2006.
History
Origins The hotel site was located near a salt lick that wild animals once visited as they traveled along the Buffalo Trace in southern Indiana. Native Americans also used the area as hunting grounds. It became known as French Lick in reference to the French traders and settlers who lived in the vicinity of the salt lick. Some sources have cited a legend that suggests George Rogers Clark, who camped in the area during an expedition in 1786–87, may have named it after a site along the Cumberland River in Tennessee.
Early development In 1826, encouraged by the presence of salt deposits near French Lick, Indiana's state government authorized the land to be mined for quantities of salt, but the saline content was insufficient to support large-scale salt mining and the property was offered for sale. In 1832 Thomas Bowles and his brother, William A., a Paoli, Indiana, physician and early land speculator, purchased of land that included the site near the mineral springs. Doctor Bowles eventually built an inn on the property; it became known as the French Lick Springs Hotel.
Although the specific date of the hotel's opening is not known, it is believed that Bowles built the first hotel on his French Lick property sometime around 1845.Fadely, p. 61. (Some sources believe the narrow, three-story hotel, measuring an estimated to in length, may have been built prior to 1840, but most report that it opened in 1845.Rhodes, pp. 17–18.) The early hotel, which operated during the summer months, was a modest success. In 1846, prior to his departure for military service as a commissioned officer in the U.S. Army during the Mexican–American War, Bowles leased the property to John A. Lane, a physician/patent medicine salesman, for at least five years. Under the terms of the lease Lane agreed to enlarge and improve the facility. Reprint of History of Lawrence, Orange and Washington Counties (1884).O'Malley, p. 367.
In the early 1850s Bowles resumed management of the hotel and continued to improve the property. Lane purchased of land from Bowles that included mineral springs at Mile Lick, north of French Lick. Lane assembled a sawmill, erected a bridge to traverse Lick Creek, and built the West Baden Springs Hotel. Competition from Lane's new hotel, which opened in the mid-1850s, began a decades-long rivalry between the two Orange County sites.Rhodes, pp. 8–9.O'Malley, p. 368. In the 1860s Bowles leased the French Lick hotel to Doctor Samuel Ryan, who operated it for Bowles and the heirs of Bowles's estate following the owner's death in 1873. Joseph G. Rogers, a physician from Madison, Indiana, named the French Lick hotel's largest mineral spring Pluto's Well in 1869. (Pluto is the classical mythological god of the underworld.)Steelwater, p. 52.
The original French Lick hotel, which was rebuilt or enlarged as a -story frame building with a wrap-around veranda in the Gothic Revival style, underwent few additional changes until the early 1880s, when it was sold to Hiram E. Wells and James M. Andrews. The hotel and mineral springs were sold at a sheriff's sale organized to settle a legal dispute over Bowles's estate.Steelwater, p. 53. Wells and Andrews enlarged and improved the property in the 1880s and 1890s, developing it into a popular health resort.Rhodes, p. 8.
Wells acquired Andrews's interest in the property in 1887 for $61,000, and immediately sold the hotel to a group of Louisville, Kentucky, investors for $122,000 in cash and $100,000 in the French Lick Springs Company's stock. Wells retained a one-quarter interest in the property until 1891, when he sold his interest to the investment group. The new owners added two wings to the main hotel and expanded the hotel's operation from a seasonal business to a year-round resort.Steelwater, pp. 53–54. In 1887 the Monon Railroad built an extension of its line to transport guests to the hotels and mineral springs at French Lick and West Baden.
The main hotel building (Windsor) was destroyed by fire in 1897. It was rebuilt on an even grander scale. Three major springs were located on the French Lick resort's property: Bowles (renamed Lithia), Proserpine, and the better-known Pluto. The area's mineral water and baths were alleged to cure more than fifty ailments, including gout, alcoholism, and rheumatism, among others.O'Malley, p. 374.
Taggart era
In 1901 the property was sold to an investment group that included Thomas Taggart, a politician and former mayor of Indianapolis. Taggart served three terms as mayor of Indianapolis (1895 to 1901), as a chairman of the Democratic National Committee, and briefly in the U.S. Senate (1916).Steelwater, pp. 56.Fadely, pp. xii and 57. Other members of the investment group included William McDoel, president of the Monon Railroad; Crawford Fairbanks, a Terre Haute brewery owner; and Livingston T. Dickson, a limestone quarry owner. The new owners spent more than $200,000 on improvements, including a redesign and enlargement of the main wing (1901–02), sometimes called the front or east wing, designed by architect William Homer Floyd. The main wing's new design overlaid the hotel's Late Victorian architecture with Mediterranean Revival architecture, most notably the Italian Renaissance style that was popular in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. The exteriors of the main wing and later additions were unified with similar proportions, a consistent roofline, and the hotel's distinctive buff-colored brick.Steelwater, pp. 5–6. Note: This includes , Site map, and accompanying photographs.
Around 1905 Taggart bought out his partners to become the hotel's sole owner. Under his direction, the hotel was transformed into a first-class resort that included the main wing (1901–1902), a recreation center (formerly the bath house, 1910–11), and four connected wings: annex (1905, remodeled 1911), west (1910–11), deluxe (1914–15), and north (1924–25). These facilities housed lobbies and guest room, dining rooms and bars, offices, shops, and a spa. The annex wing provided offices and guest rooms. The west wing, the hotel's first fireproof wing, included an elaborate Italian Renaissance Revival-style pavilion, originally named the Pluto Bar. The seven-story deluxe wing housed guest rooms and suites, including accommodations for the Taggart family when they resided at the hotel. The hotel's six-story north wing provided the hotel with conference and exhibition spaces.Steelwater, pp. 12–15; 18–20.Fadely, pp. 65–68.
Taggart made additional improvements at the mineral springs that included the construction of pavilions, including the Pluto spring house (circa 1911), to shelter the springs. A new mineral spring bath was built at the site of the present-day spa facility. In addition, Taggart is credited with modernizing the hotel, which included bringing in electricity, adding a fresh water system, and establishing trolley service to French Lick. The hotel's service buildings included a kitchen complex (1897, 1910–11, c. 1925), power station (1902, expanded 1905), its first bottling plant (circa 1900) for Pluto Water, and a hotel laundry (circa 1911–13). He also convinced the Monon Railroad to lay a spur track to the hotel's grounds and run daily passenger service to Chicago.Steelwater, pp. 5–6; 22–26.Bunting, p, 43. The hotel also had three distinct gardens on its grounds: a Japanese garden (circa 1920; later redesigned and replanted), a Fresh Water Spring garden (circa 1900–15), and an Italian-style formal garden (circa 1915; later redesigned and altered).Steelwater, pp. 27–29. Recreational facilities included horseback riding, tennis, swimming, bowling, billiards, and a gym, as well as fine dining and dancing to music from the hotel's orchestra.Fadely, p. 72.
At the height of the resort's popularity, which occurred during Taggart's ownership of the hotel, approximately 150 to 200 guests checked into the hotel each day. The resort provided Taggart with more than $2 million in annual profits.Bunting, p. 45. Following Taggart's death in 1929, Thomas Douglas Taggart, the politician's son, became owner of the hotel property, which included approximately and buildings valued at nearly $2 million.Steelwater, p. 57.
Decline In the years following the Wall Street stock market crash of 1929, the resort went into decline, but it did not close. To survive the financial challenges of the Great Depression and an increase in competition from other American resorts, the French Lick hotel was promoted as a recreational resort with an emphasis on golf and convention business, rather than health.Bunting, p. 46. Thomas D. Taggart sold the hotel to a group of New York City investors in 1946 Pluto Water operations were separated from the resort's operations in 1948. The resort was sold to Sheraton Hotels in 1954 and renamed the French Lick-Sheraton Hotel. Although the Sheraton chain spent "millions of dollars" to improve the facilities, the physical plant continued to decline. Sheraton sold the hotel to Cox Hotel Corporation of New York in 1979. Cox returned the resort to its original name and sold the property to Kenwood Financial in 1986. The Luther James family of Louisville, Kentucky, acquired the hotel in 1991, and Boykin Lodging of Cleveland, Ohio, bought it in 1997. The Cook Group, headquartered in Bloomington, Indiana, purchased the hotel on April 13, 2005.
Casino resort
Revitalization of the hotel in the early twenty-first century began after considerable campaigning by Orange County residents, the Cook Group, Boykin Lodging (the hotel's owner), and Historic Landmarks Foundation of Indiana, who lobbied the Indiana General Assembly to allow casino gambling in the area. Legislation was finally approved in 2003 and the required local referendum easily passed. The Indiana Gaming Commission granted the long-promised operating license for a riverboat casino to The Trump Organization, headed by businessman Donald Trump, but a variety of reasons caused the selection process to begin again. A partnership of business interests from within Indiana, including billionaire Bill Cook, submitted an application for a gambling license before purchasing the French Lick Springs Hotel from Boykin Lodging. The partnership was awarded the license during the summer of 2005.
The French Lick Resort Casino complex includes the French Lick Springs Hotel, adjacent casino, and the nearby West Baden Springs Hotel. The French Lick hotel was restored as part of a $382 million project that included construction of the new casino. Refurbishments to the multi-structure French Lick hotel included updating its 443 guest rooms and restoration of the lobby, among other improvements. The renovated hotel and new casino complex opened together on November 3, 2006.