Chances are, when you feel a little achy or sniffly, you have some remedies to which you turn. Sleep, ibuprofen, a hot toddy and a good book – or a perhaps you quaff a tall glass of water from your local mineral springs, or visit the mineral springs resort itself! Well, probably not the latter. But from around 1830 to the early 20th century, resorts built around mineral springs were big business in Kentucky. Sadly, few buildings remain from Kentucky’s historic resort towns – but a tidy collection of commercial buildings on South Main Street in Dawson Springs date to that town’s heyday as a popular resort. *
Side elevation and facade of the Merit Sanatorium building in Dawson Springs, Kentucky.
Dawson Springs, situated in Hopkins County in western Kentucky, went from small railroad town to resort town in a decade.** The town’s name even changed – from Dawson City, to Dawson Springs.
Section of a 1911 USGS 15-minute topographic map showing Dawson Springs.
Mineral springs, discovered in 1893 by Washington Hamby, drove the growth of the community and enticed visitors from across the state. In 1900, some 51,000 people visited the springs, drawn not only by the touted medicinal associations of the mineral waters, but by the social life centered around the mineral springs.
Detail of the storefront of the Merit Sanatorium Building.
I regret that I know nothing related to the story of the Merit Sanatorium Building, a two-story brick building constructed in 1913. It drew me in like a moth to flame. I don’t know who built it, or how it was used during the resort’s active period, or what its future may hold.
But it is such a handsome commercial building that I stood transfixed across the street, studying it for several minutes.
The ground floor is divided into two storefronts, with a central door leading onto a stair to the second story. The storefront display windows, now boarded over, have a riveting expanse of multi-light transoms.
Second story facade.
The second story is even more alluring – with four sets of double, multi-light doors, topped with rusticated stone lintels, leading onto a metal balcony with a curved railing that spans the width of the facade. At the cornice level are rectangular blocks trimmed in glazed brick that once contained the painted name of the building. (If you squint, you can still barely make it out.)
The Merit Sanatorium Building in 1988. Photograph from the NRHP files, taken by Philip Thomason.
The population of Dawson Springs ballooned to 1,500 residents by 1915, due in large part to the success of the resort. That year there were 40 hotels in the community, and several bath houses and boarding houses.
One of the hotels in Dawson Springs, Kentucky. The New Century Hotel was destroyed by fire in the 1950s. Image from the Kentucky Historical Society, Ronald Morgan Kentucky Postcard Collection, Graphic 5.
Sadly, this second flush of resort life in Kentucky (following the initial antebellum period of development), petered out by the 1930s. The Great Depression hit, and Kentuckians, already feeling the pinch from a downturn in agricultural markets, lacked the money and the desire to “take the waters.” Additionally, other leisure and entertainment options served to distract from the resort springs.
Although many of the buildings associated with the resort have been demolished or destroyed in the ensuing decades, the National Register of Historic Places listed commercial district is well worth a detour from the highway. Dawson Springs is a trail town, and Pennyrile Forest State Resort Park attracts many visitors.
And buildings like the Merit Sanatorium still stand*** (though in need of some love), providing visitors like me a chance to imagine the languid days of resort life in Kentucky.
*There are other standing structures associated with the springs in Dawson Springs, including the local library, which was once a bath house.
** The presence of the railroad was instrumental in the resort developing in the way that it did.
***The Merit Sanatorium no longer stands. It was demolished in August/September 2020.
September 2020 image of the empty lot where the Merit Sanatorium once stood.
I grew up in Dawson Springs. Thank you for this great article. My mother would have been 15 in 1930, and she had many tales of the fun times.
Thank you for reading!
My grandfather sought a cure in a Dawson Springs sanatorium after being diagnosed with Tuberculosis in WWI, he died there in 1930.