The West Baden Springs Hotel, formerly the West Baden Inn, is part of the French Lick Resort and is a national historic landmark hotel in West Baden Springs, Indiana. It has a 200-foot (61 m) dome over its atrium. Prior to the completion of the Coliseum in Charlotte, North Carolina, in 1955, the dome was the largest free-spanning dome in the United States. From 1902 to 1913 it was the largest dome in the world. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974, the hotel became a National Historic Landmark in 1987. It is a National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark and one of the hotels in the National Trust for Historic Preservation's Historic Hotels of America program.
Early history Roaming bear and herds of deer and buffalo once visited the salt lick near the present-day site of the West Baden Springs Hotel as they traveled along the Buffalo Trace in southern Indiana. Native Americans also used the area as hunting grounds. Following the arrival of French traders and settlers in the vicinity, the site became known as French Lick. When George Rogers Clark passed through southern Indiana in 1778, he camped less than a mile from the salt licks and mineral springs in Orange County that became known as French Lick and West Baden Springs. The presence of salt deposits enticed the state government to consider mining large quantities of salt for early pioneers to use in preserving meat, but when it was determined that the saline content was insufficient to support large-scale salt mining, the property was offered for sale around 1832. William A. Bowles, a local physician, purchased the land that included the mineral springs and built a small inn. Constructed around 1840–45, it developed into the French Lick Springs Hotel, a popular health resort. Bowles served as a commissioned officer in the U.S. Army during the Mexican–American War. Before his departure for military service in 1846, Bowles signed a five-year lease with John A. Lane, a physician/patent medicine salesman, who agreed to enlarge and improve the facility at French Lick. The business deal would allow Bowles to enjoy an improved facility with the potential for increased business at the lease's end, and Lane would make a potential profit from his investment. Part of Bowles' land included the mineral springs known as Mile Lick, 1 mile (1.6 km) north of French Lick. Much of the property surrounding the Mile Lick springs was marshy, subject to yearly flooding, and unsuitable to farming, but Lane envisioned it as a business area that would surpass French Lick. In 1851 he purchased 770 acres (310 hectares) from Bowles. Lane assembled a sawmill, erected a bridge to traverse Lick Creek, and built a hotel larger than the French Lick Springs, beginning the competition between the two Orange County sites.
West Baden Lane opened a hotel around 1852 near the settlement of Mile Lick and named it the Mile Lick Inn. In 1855, when the community was renamed West Baden in reference to Wiesbaden (or Baden-Baden), a spa town in Germany that was known for its mineral springs, Lane changed the hotel's name to the West Baden Inn. By the 1860s it was known as the West Baden Springs Hotel. The property was managed by Lane and Mr. and Mrs. Hugh Wilkins, with the assistance of W. F. Osborn, until 1883, when it was sold to a group of investors who made additional improvements. In 1887 the Monon Railroad built an extension of its line to transport guests to the hotels and springs at French Lick and West Baden, where the two sites competed to offer the best service, entertainment, food and mineral water. By the late 1800s, guests arrived from across the country on seven separate railroads for relaxation and the alleged curative powers of the mineral water. The area's mineral water and baths were alleged to cure more than fifty ailments. Sidewalks led from the hotel to seven numbered springs, all of which were covered by open wooden shelters. West Baden marketed water from its onsite springs under the Sprudel Water brand name. (A gnome named Sprudel was also a part of its logo.) French Lick sold Pluto Water using a red devil as a part of its trademark. In 1888 an investment group called Sinclair and Rhodes, which included Lee Wiley Sinclair from Salem, Indiana, and E. B. Rhodes, acquired the West Baden hotel and 667 acres (270 hectares) of land for $23,000. Although the hotel was destroyed by fire in 1891, it was rebuilt, and over the next several years Sinclair bought his partners' interest in the hotel and became its sole owner. Sinclair turned the facility into an elaborate resort. Advertised as the Carlsbad of America, the cosmopolitan resort included a casino, an opera house, and a covered, two-deck, one-third-mile oval bicycle and pony track. A lighted baseball diamond in the center of the track was used as the spring training grounds for several major league teams including the Cincinnati Reds, Chicago Cubs, and Pittsburgh Pirates, among others. The hotel caught fire on June 14, 1901, but no guests were injured. Sinclair invited Thomas Taggart, the new owner of the French Lick Springs Hotel, to buy the West Baden property, but Taggart rebuffed the offer, boasting that he would expand his facility to handle more guests. Sinclair, who was outraged, decided to build a new, circular-shaped hotel that would be fireproof and have a large dome. His goal was to open the new hotel within a year. Most building professionals rejected the idea of a 200-foot (61 m) dome, but Harrison Albright an architect from West Virginia, designed the building. Oliver Westcott, a bridge engineer, designed the dome's trusses. To complete the structure before the first anniversary of the fire, a 500-man crew worked six days a week in ten-hour shifts for 270 days at a total cost of $414,000.
Eighth Wonder
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