We’ve been here since 1845, and we’re still kickin’.
French Lick Springs Hotel isn't too far away from a 180th birthday, and it’s almost difficult to wrap your mind about how old that really is. (If you’ve ever feeling old yourself, don’t worry — we’ve got you beat.)
But just think about that. 1845. What was the experience like visiting the hotel when it opened in 1845?
For starters, the town wasn’t technically French Lick then — the hotel came before the town of French Lick, which wasn’t platted until 1857. Indiana, which achieved statehood in 1816, was in the prime of its life — just 29 years old.
John Quincy Adams, the 6th US president, was still alive the year a hotel was first established on the French Lick property. The 7th US president Andrew Jackson, died on June 8, 1845 — which was likely shortly after the time the first French Lick hotel opened.
So what was your actual hotel experience like in 1845?
You got here by gravel and dirt roads. (Trains hadn’t even come in yet, and the first paved roads didn’t come until more than 60 years later.) You arrived via horse and buggy (the first car wasn’t rolled out until nearly 50 years later), and you pulled up to a hotel that looks much different than the sprawling property you see today.
The original French Lick House was a three-story wood-framed structure. As you can see in the picture above — the first known photo we have of the original hotel — it’s simple, yet elegant for the time. Keep in mind, this entire area was still basically wilderness during that era. A “huge” new hotel (it probably contained about 50 guest rooms) was still a big deal.
Your stay here was pretty elemental. You stayed in the hotel. Ate hearty meals. Observed the animals. Walked the grounds. Drank the waters. That was how the hotel came to be, after all — because of the waters.
A local doctor, William A. Bowles, believed the mineral springs of this area possessed curative healing powers. As Bowles was marketing this mineral water as a cure-all for his patients, he purchased and sold several plots of land in this area to try and cash in on this mineral water while others viewed it as low-lying swampland with little worth.
Dr. Bowles was the original Amazon — he advertised delivery of mineral waters by the barrelful, right to your door. It was a lot of work, and demand exceeded his capability. That’s why he built the hotel: It was easier to let people come to him. Probably because he originally built the hotel to cater to local patients, Bowles’ new hotel opened in the spring of 1845 with very little fanfare or advertising.
It was a seasonal hotel, only open during what they called the “watering season” of late spring to early fall. You’d maybe stay here for weeks at a time — since travel wasn’t as convenient and weekend getaways weren’t yet a thing, when you were able to travel, you had to make it count.
We don’t have any other accounts or relics from the hotel’s first year in 1845. Only a precious few of these early photos, which are likely from a few years after the hotel’s opening. If these walls could talk, just imagine what more they could tell us about what life was like almost years ago at this hotel in the woods.
