| Chronicles Of Lithia Spring |
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SWEETWATER PARK HOTEL - LITHIA SPRINGS, GEORGIA
"Bewilderment seizes one when they first set foot on the grounds of the SWEETWATER PARK HOTEL. Flowery language describes the buildings, accommodations, food and entertainment, and outdoor activities. As the visitor takes his first wandering gaze around the place, the first impression is that everything about the resort has been done upon a lavish and charming scale, resulting in the finest resort of its kind in America.
The great pleasure resort was located near the MINERAL SPRINGS SPA, just west of Atlanta. Looking east from the elegant third floor ballroom, one could see the Atlanta skyline, looking north one could noble Kennesaw Mountain and its historic battleground shimmering in the far off distance, to the south, one sees General Sherman's destruction of the New Manchester Mill at Sweetwater Shoals, and to the west one sees the Arabesque Piedmont Chautauqua. The flowers, the fountains, the domes, towers, and shining walls seem like a vision of the Alhambra, until involuntarily one looks to the soaring minaret, expecting to see a priest of Moslem stretching forth his arms, and to hear the far-off cry, "Allah il Allah."
The 250-room luxury hotel and resort, was considered fifty years ahead of its time in offering its guests, electric lights, an intercommunications system, (the first in Georgia), indoor plumbing, custom made furniture from Michigan, European wines and linens, and featuring the WORLD'S ONLY LITHIA VAPOR BATHS. Skin impurities were removed by free sweating in a vapor compartment. The LITHIA BATHS were soothing to the irritated skin and afforded comfort for hours after a treatment. The total treatment included LITHIA VAPOR, steam, electric, massage on a marble slab, and a final mineral water bath.
A tranquil setting afforded the power brokers and the "RICH AND FAMOUS" a peaceful atmosphere for health renewal, as well as decision making and communications. Presidents, MCKINLEY, CLEVELAND, TAFT, THEODORE ROOSEVELT and Confederate President JEFFERSON DAVIS, took the waters and reveled in the Hot System of Baths. The Vanderbilts, Astors, and Whitneys, traveling in their private Pullman cars, visited the Resort on their way to Florida. Joel Chandler Harris (Uncle Remus) and James Whitcomb Riley chose the SWEETWATER PARK HOTEL as the perfect place for their sojourns to reflect on their literary accomplishments and mutual interests. While the old Chautauqua, the magnificent Sweetwater Park Hotel and Tabernacles have long since disappeared, the infinite ETERNAL ELIXIR from LITHIA SPRINGS remains.
Known as the EARTH'S FIRST SMART WATER, it became increasingly important to the medical profession as a treatment for a host of ailments. To meet doctors and the public's demand for the miracle water, the solution was to develop a bottling operation along with the Health Resort. The SWEETWATER PARK HOTEL, a sumptuous semi-sanitarium, quickly became the most fashionable watering place in the South, a five-star rating by today's standards.
TESTIMONIALS
Copyright 1897
WHAT THE GENERAL PUBLIC SAY
President Grover Cleveland
November 21, 1895
Executive Mansion, Wash., D.C.
To the Lithia Springs Water Company, Please send me a case of Lithia Water as soon as possible. Will you also please send a circular stating prices and the different kinds of packages in which it is sent. Yours truly, Grover Cleveland
WHAT UNCLE REMUS SAID
Editorial Rooms, The Atlanta Constitution
Atlanta Georgia, September 30, 1889
Gentleman, several years ago I was suffering from Kidney complaint and general debility. I lost flesh constantly, at the rate of a pound a week. After treatment by my family physician, which failed altogether, and after dosing myself with various patent medicines, I concluded to go to Lithia Springs. I recovered my health entirely and believe there is no kidney ailment that this Water will not cure. I have sent hundreds of my friends to Lithia Springs, and they have all materially benefited.
Sincerely, Joel Chandler Harris (Uncle Remus)
W. W. Landrum, The Noted Divine
Pastor of the First Baptist Church of Atlanta
January 14, 1897.
"I have no hesitation in saying that I prefer the LITHIA WATER to all other so-called waters of the apothecary. This water supplies the correction I need for acidity, and it acts most delightfully and freely. I most heartily recommend it. Yours cordially, W. W. Landrum
A FEW NEW YORK REFERENCES
Honorable Grover Cleveland, Reform Club, New York
Mr. Lewis Leland, Windsor Hotel, New York
Mr. W. C. Spencer, Gorham Mfg., Company, New York
Judge George F. Roesch, 309 Broadway, New York
Mr. H. Batterman, Broadway and Flushing Avenue, Brooklyn, New York
Mr. C. F. Winkemeir, 547 Grand Street, Brooklyn, New York
Mr. M. L. Towns, 375 Fulton Street, New York
Mr. J. E. Hinds, 177 New York Avenue, Brooklyn, New York
Mr. Herbert Tate, 21 East 20th Street, New York
Mr. George Cheney, Union League Club, New York
Mr. E. L. McBurney, 291 Broadway, New York
Dr. E. H. Stafford, Secretary, N. Y. Polyclinic, New York
O. S. Brown, Manager Hat Department, R. H. Macy & Company, New York
Mr. Warren Leland Jr., Ocean House, Newport, Rhode Island
Dr. F. J. Nott, 554 Madison Avenue, New York
Mr. Alex S. Thweatt, Passenger Agent, Southern Railway, 271 Broadway, NY
Dr. J. J. Griffiths, 33 East 74th Street, New York
Mr. W. T. Washington, Hotel Marlboro, New York
Mr. Alfred Marsh, S. S. McClure Company, New York
Mr. James R. Thomas, Real Estate, 515 Lexington Avenue, New York
Copyright 1897, Lithia Springs, Georgia
WHAT PHYSICIANS SAY ABOUT LITHIA WATER
RHEUMATISM Atlanta, GA, January 25, 1887. "I have watched the effects of the LITHIA WATER FOR SEVERAL YEARS. Besides using it in my family, I do not hesitate to say that it is a water of real merit and especially adapted to all cases of chronic glandular engorgement, and to rheumatism and its kindred disorders." Gustavus Garnet Roy, M. D. Prof. Materia Medica and Therapeutics, Southern Medical College
CHRONIC RHEUMATISM AND GOUT. "I cannot speak too highly of LITHIA WATER as a remedy in chronic rheumatism and gout. That the water acts as a solvent of the excess uric acid in the painful affectations I am firmly convinced." W. MacDonald, M. D. President, Hamline University, Minnesota
STONES IN THE BLADDER. Philadelphia, PA, November 26, 1889. "Indeed I may say that in no part of the world does a more valuable or useful natural medicinal water exist for complaints truly recorded that the LITHIA WATER."
N. de Duboneay M. D., Fellow, Royal College of Surgeons : Royal Member Medical Jurisprudence Society, Philadelphia, PA
LIVER AND KIDNEYS. Atlanta, GA, October 5, 1887. "The LITHIA WATER is, in my judgment, entitled to a high rank as a valuable water in the treatment of cases of uric acid diathesis, in enlargement of the liver and kidneys, and irritability of the bladder. In all these cases, and in rheumatic aches, the water should be taken freely." Charles S. Webb, M. D., Professor, Practice of Medicine, Southern Medical College
NERVOUS DYSPEPSIA. Hartford, Conn., January 14, 1891. "I am pleased to that I have been using the LITHIA WATER with success in the case of a patient who has been an invalid for months, suffering from nervous dyspepsia and accumulation of gas in the stomach. Nothing I prescribed was of value until we began to use this water. It is of great value and the patient has improved steadily." T. D. Crothers, M. D., President, Walnut Lodge Hospital.
URIC ACID. Ferdinand Seeger, M. D., Editor Medical Classics, New York City, July 1, 1888. "I have examined LITHIA WATER carefully and recommend its use to all sufferers of acid troubles."
ECZEMA. Shelbyville, TN, October 31, 1889. "Having suffered greatly with severe attacks of popular eczema for the last eight years, I take pleasure in testifying to the great benefit I have received from the use of the LITHIA WATER both by drinking and bathing in the water for the last three months at the Resort. I cheerfully recommend its use to any one suffering eczema, or diseases, either functional or organic, of the urinary organs." Respectfully, R. F. Evans, M. D.
President, Tennessee State Medical Society.
BRIGHT'S DISEASE. Chicago, Illinois, October 29, 1892. "I have tried the LITHIA WATER in a very bad case of Bright's Disease, with the happiest results. Its chemistry must commend it to a large number of nervous diseases, in the treatment of all fevers." T. J. Reid, M. D.
MEDICINAL VALUE. Oxford, GA, October 5, 1887. "It gives me great pleasure to say that, in my opinion, the mineral water from LITHIA SPRINGS possesses the highest medicinal properties. As to the Sweetwater Park Hotel, I do not see how it could be surpassed for comfort, elegance, and kind attention to guests." Isaac S. Hopkins, M. D., Ph. D., D. D., President Emory College.
THE MOST ESSENTIAL NUTRIENT. Since creation, the amount of water on this planet has not changed. Every Living creature depends on it to survive. Contemporary medicine has finally recognized that diet is important in health and behavior. Water, which has been taken for granted, is now seen as the most important nutrient in the diet of humans. LITHIA SPRINGS MINERAL WATER contains all of the right elements and none of the wrong ones. It is a very useful adjunct in the treatment of nervousness and insomnia. I have enthusiastically recommended only one mineral water to my patients for years, the Lithia Springs Natural Alkaline Water." William Campbell Douglass, M. D., Editor, Second Opinion Monthly Newsletter, Atlanta, GA 30346
HE WHO HAS HEALTH HAS HOPE; AND
HE WHO HAS HOPE, HAS EVERYTHING, Arabian Proverb
JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY AND JOEL CHANDLER HARRIS
PHOTOGRAPHED AT THE SWEETWATER PARK HOTEL, 1902
Riley and Harris spent two week together at the Great Health Resort in Lithia Springs, Georgia. According to an acquaintance, "Harris and Riley seemed absolutely happy in each other's company." For two weeks these rare characters loafed about the broad verandas of the hotel, rarely ever being separated, and only occasionally having with them a few select friends as guests of their story-telling bees. Riley would tell one of his ones and hold his sides in laughter as he watched the effect of the story on "Uncle Remus." Then Uncle Joe … would bat his eye a few times, the lips would curl in a suppressed laugh, and he would put over at Riley a story which would make a stoic laugh. Harris later said that those two weeks at Lithia Springs were "the happiest he had ever known."
THE PIEDMONT CHAUTAUQUA
"THE ENLIGHTMENT OF THE PEOPLE"
"I CONSIDER MY PART IN THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE PIEDMONT CHAUTAUQUA "THE ONE GREAT MERITORIOUS ACCOUNT OF MY LIFE."
Henry Woodfin Grady, Founder.
The Chatauqua movement which began in Lake Chatuaqua, New York in 1874, a summer program for training Sunday School teachers and church workers, prompted Henry W. Grady to take the lead in developing a similar educational facility near Atlanta, Georgia in 1888.
Henry Woodfin Grady (1850 - 1889), the editor of the Atlanta Constitution, was a prophet, an orator, and the leading spokesman for the "New South." A vision of a prosperous and enlightened South created Grady's interest in establishing the first Chautauqua in Georgia and by far the most ambitious of any undertaking in the South.
Through his daily columns and weekly journal, Grady reached a large and ever increasing appreciative audience. Even groups in the North clamored to invite him to speak. His twenty-minute address before the New England Club in New York City did more to reunite the Nation than had all the other speeches and editorials on the subject since the War Between the States.
With the Piedmont Chautauqua, it would be possible to bring the wealth of the universities, the rich harmonies of the world's musicians, the eloquence of the great orators, and the truth of the greatest teachers and preachers to enlighten the minds and enrich the lives of multitudes of Southerners. The Chautuaqua was an educational institution suited to an adult population to serve the needs of the common people in rural communities in Georgia and the South. Grady made education accessible to all.
He went to great lengths to secure twenty-one eminent professors from such schools as Yale, Harvard, Princeton, John Hopkins, Vanderbilt and the University of Virginia. The Summer College offered courses in English Language and Literature, German Language and Literature, French Language and Literature, Preparatory and College Latin and Greek, Physics, Botany, Chemistry, History and Pedagogies, New Testament, Arabic, Assyrian, and Hebrew Language and Literature. The Assembly Schools included Physical Culture, Decorative Arts, Fine Arts, Elocution and Music. In keeping with the Chautauqua program, a two-day program offered "Sunday School Days" for workers and children.
The site for the project was to be a place of natural beauty. Since the Sweetwater Park and Health Resort was already internationally known for the celebrated medicinal water, Lithia Springs was chosen as the logical site. New York Architect L. B. Wheeler and Joseph Forsyth Johnston, well known landscape engineers, were selected to design the buildings and landscape for the formal gardens.
The Chautauqua buildings were built after the Moorish style, with plain wings and towers and minarets clustering to the center. The Tabernacle seated seven thousand people and was located in an immense grove with exquisite gardens and lawns, rose mounds and a reflecting lake.
The Piedmont Chautauqua formally opened on Sunday July 8, 1888, with sermons by three famous preachers and an illumination by ten thousand colored lights. The Eighth Calvary Regiment Band of the Republic of Mexico, proved to be such a sensation, the trains from Atlanta to the Chautauqua were packed at every scheduled run. After a rendition of "Dixie and the Star Spangled Banner" at each performance, the Band received "vociferous applause." Indeed, Grady's Chautauqua had exceeded all expectations.
MEDICINE SPRINGS…HEALTH LESSONS FROM THE ANCIENTS
STANDING ON THE VERY EDGE OF HISTORY
MILLENNIUM 2000….ROCKS OF NEW AGES
The rocks tell tales even as they sit silent and stolid. At the southern end of the seven-hundred million years old Appalachian Mountain Chain, the unlettered children of the forest gathered here and left their impressions in the imperishable granite surrounding the "Springs of Life." Throughout the centuries, the Water became known as "MEDICINE SPRINGS."
There is archaeological evidence clearly shown in the rock carvings that the fabled healing waters were inhabited by an Ancient Culture at least 3,000 to 6,000 years ago. Around the calming waters, hovered the "Spirit of Healing," sent by Manitou or Great Spirit.
Since the Archaic Period, Ancients were sustained by these WATERS. Prior to the 18th Century, most of Georgia was home to Native Americans belonging to a Southeastern Alliance known as the Creek Confederacy. Today's Creek Nation was the major tribe in that Alliance.
SPANISH CONQUISTADORS IN THE NEW WORLD
In the 1500's, Hernando de Sota and other Spanish explorers set out from Florida's Gulf Coast in search of gold and other treasures through the Southeast.
The great rocks at "MEDICINE SPRINGS" remain proof of that journey 500 years ago. Water was the all important factor, not time. The Springs provided MIRACLE WATER and salt deposits from creek banks for the conquistadors, weary from their virgin conquests in what is now the State of Georgia. Spanish treasure-trail markers, symbols, and monuments carved in stone outcroppings centuries ago, speak to us of the white man's first visit to "Medicine Springs" and the new world.
THE LAST VESTIGES OF A CHEROKEE CHIEFTAIN
The land was once claimed by both the Creek and Cherokee Indians. Legend has it that at a Lacrosse (ball) game, the land was staked in the outcome, and the latter won the game thereby obtaining possession of the territory in question.
The Cherokee who called themselves "Principal People," migrated in the 1600's to the Southeast from the Great Lakes region. Their Nation was a confederacy of towns, each subordinated to supreme chiefs. The Springs became the southernmost territory of the Cherokee Nation. Chief Sweetwater (Amakanasta in Cherokee) and his large tribe, inhabited "DeerLick" the first name of the Springs. Granite boulders provided natural "salt-licks" for an abundance of deer and wild life still seen on a regular basis. Along with other Cherokee Chiefs, Chief Amakanasta signed a "Letter of Protest" to President Andrew Jackson's Secretary of War, Lewis Cafs in 1832 at Red Clay, Tennessee. The Chiefs protested the encroachments by the white settler on their sovereign lands.
Below is a translation or the above letter -- the text is orginal and might be hard to follow.
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COUIICIL CONVEN@,D A--I RED CL-AY2 TSXXI@335;S., Cli Nk'lloN, '-Uk3UST 6t-h E,32 Tri rA@,' @-@AR
Sir#
Yoi,ii- letter tearing date the 17th of April- last,, containing cp-rt,:iin proposition as the general torpi3 upon i4hich the President is willing to treat with this ilat4i.011, tkas been received through the hands of Elisha @-1. Cheater, Esqu. it is with much 'istor4slir@.-eiit @ia learn front this letter that the President has been in-foi-r,@ed, tti&t a change has probably taken place in the sentiments this nation here to fore enter- t,ii.ne,d on ttic subject of a removal to the country west of the Plj-ssissippi., and th@.I. proposition, from the Goverment having that object @-n view, would be favorably re- reived.
'the subject matter has been fully considered together with the peculiar arbor - rassinents that now surround us, and in compliance with your request, we proceed tc collii,@-uiiica-te our re-ply. In the first place we wish to call your attention to the @-ip,cis@ons of the Nat-Lon on fomer ocorisic)ns on the subject; and to inform the that the ti,ue sentiments of the Cherokee "I"eople reriatn the s&Te that-., the basis of his proposition is objectionable a-,A that the Nation is pl.aced in duress frori the illega'@@ proceedings of Georgia in assuriing to exercise jurisdiction over a large portion of our territory, and by placing a military force with the officers of her own creating in our country for t'ne purpose of oppressing our citizeri,9,, she lias also introduced a gi,eat iaa-ny of her citizens arlong us to intr-ade on our lands, and further she has sur- VE@yed those lands and vest6d in her Ch@i@f Magistrate the power of drawings, a lottery -for the occupation of them. knd in this pecular state of things the protecting amps of the President is withheld from the enforcement of the treaties and of the Uia-,It(,d states nade for the protection of our national rights.
And rtioreovei- diverse agents of the central goverment have been co"Tissi.onr@d for country west of the Yiississippi and in the prosecution of the business sorte of theory ha.ve been seduced -under circumstances calculated to create disquietude and disagree- able feelings. i3kit let the uresident renove all the difficulties arising frcrr@ thl@-se unjust Measures and afford us that necessary protection which is gkarariteed to us by treaties and then the exercise of that privilege which is so essential to the enjoyment of free r,.en, would place us at liberty to reflect, speak and act freel.y on the sabject of our national interest and welfare. In conclusion i.,e would re-spectfiil-jly call your attention to the frequent complaints which have been made to the Depart@i@-,erit against the rrl)merous intrusions on our land bording on the bovndries of the several adjoining states and to urge the removal of the intruders.
Very respectfully your friend,
Richard Taylor Joseph Vann
Cherokee General Council Chiefs of the Cherokee Nation
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In accordance with the Treaty of New Echota (the Cherokee Capitol in Georgia) in 1835, the final removal of all Cherokees to the West was completed in 1838. The infamous march became known as the "Trail of Tears" or "Trail Where We Cried." Of the 15,000 rounded up, 8000 Cherokees died as a result of starvation and on their uncharted course to what is now known as the State of Oklahoma. The original site at New Echota is a State restored Historic Site.
Through the ages, little has changed at MEDICINE SPRINGS. The mineral water's composition and the rock carvings remain as living testimonials to centuries of council fires and to nature's providence.
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TEL:
770-944-3880
Quod Florebat Florebat
"Before Us, Men Have Flourished
Just as we Now Flourish:
Others Yet Again Shall Be Whose
Generation We Shall Never See".
