Red Boiling Springs

I first heard of Red Boiling Springs, Tennessee when I was about twelve.   My grandparents had visited a local hotel on a couple of occasions and loved it.   The hotel was known for its mineral baths and their medicinal powers.

At least one year  my Uncle Harry and Aunt Ruth and my cousins, Gene and Ruth Ann, joined them for a week.  They came home with wonderful tales of home cooked meals served family style in a luxurious dining room,  a Plantation style hotel with a refreshing  swimming pool, shuffle board courts,  bowling alley and a beautiful setting full of fun things to do.

My parents wanted to experience the same wonderful site so they planned a summer excursion for my two sisters and me.

According to Wikipedia,  a man named Shepherd Kirby was one of the first settlers to move his family to the area of Tennessee known as Salt Lick Creek.  (Now known as Red Boiling Springs.)

As the tale goes, Shepherd had suffered for years from eye infections. One day Shepherd was hewing logs for the home he was building, when the pain in his eyes became so intense he quit working and went to the nearby spring to bathe his eyes. By the next morning, the misery and suffering from his eye infection had improved so much, he continued bathing his eyes daily with the spring water. Within a short while, his eye infection which had plagued him for life, disappeared.

Talk of Shepherd Kirby’s miraculous healing spread fast, and before long travelers seeking cures for every disease came by. When they returned to their homes, the pilgrims brought back new stories of their own personal healings, and the secondhand tales of the incredible healing of others.

As the lure of the healing waters spread swiftly throughout the territory, more and more families began coming to the area, at first seeking the healing waters, and then moving to the town that sprung up around  them.  During the spring and only during certain times of the day, the new settlers noticed a red-tinted water bubbling up out of the ground. The red bubbling water looked like it was boiling, and shortly thereafter the little town once known as Salt Lick Creek, became known as “Red Boiling Springs.”

I don’t know how my grandparents stumbled upon Red Boiling Springs, but they did.  They were originally from Smiths Grove, Kentucky but moved to Michigan when my mom was four years old and Aunt Ruth was two.  They still had “kin folk” near Bowling Green, Kentucky and returned to the area often to visit.  Red Boiling Springs was about an hour and a half  drive from Bowling Green.  Some of their “kin” probably told them about the wonderful springs.

Our family’s drive from Michigan to Tennessee was uneventful.   I believe that we stopped for a day to visit our “kin folk” in Bowling Green but, if we did, our visit was short.  We were looking forward to living in a “resort” for a week.   I remember arriving in town like it was yesterday.   I was sitting in the front seat with my dad, while my mom sat between my two restless sisters in the back.

We pulled up to a little mom and pop general store and my dad went inside to seek directions.   We didn’t have air-conditioning in our car during those days, so we already knew it was hot.   I got out with my dad to see if it might be cooler outside of the car.   It wasn’t.  I looked at the large Nehi Orange thermometer that hung on the shady side of the building.  (When your dad works for Faygo you notice things like that.)   It was 107 degrees.  That’s hot.   The resort was sounding better and better with each passing moment.

Dad got the directions and we traveled the last couple of miles to our hotel.   As we drove into the parking lot I saw about two dozen old men and women rocking in rocking chairs on a huge front porch.   I didn’t remember seeing this in the travel brochure.

I walked with Dad to the check-in and heard the following exchange.

Dad:  “Boy it sure is hot here.  Are the rooms air-conditioned?”

Clerk: “No sir, but we get a nice evening breeze that cools things down a mite.  You should sleep well.  The bowling alley is air-conditioned.  It’s over yonder across the parking lot.  You’ve arrived in time for supper.  Take any open table in the dining room and that will be reserved for you for the week.   I have you, the Misses, and your three children staying for the week.   Is that correct?”

Dad: “Yes.”

Clerk:  “That’s nice.  Our elders sure do like seeing the kids around here.  Here’s your key.”

We went to our room and we were disappointed with our accommodations.  Mom and dad had a bed, I think that my sisters shared one, and I had one.  There was mosquito netting hung  around the beds because there were no screens on the windows.   The bathroom was a one size fits all.  It was a small room with a toilet, sink, and a shower with a central floor drain.   Everything got wet when the shower was on.

We went to supper.  It was indeed served family style.  That’s all I really recall.

After supper we headed to the pool for a swim.  My sisters and Mom headed to the shallow end.  Dad and I walked over to the diving board.   The girls got in right away and spoke of how warm the water was.  Dad and I looked before we leaped. Our end of the pool was covered with green slime.   There were a half-dozen bull frogs sitting on top of the slime.   Dad said, “Don’t tell the girls.”  We never got in the pool.

After the girls were done swimming, we got dressed and headed to the bowling alley to seek some relief from the air-conditioning.   The place was packed with sweaty, beer drinking, pot-bellied, male bowlers.  It was “men’s league night”.  Those that wore bowling shirts had them unbuttoned so that the flapping cloth could create a breeze.   Most wore no shirts at all.   Our time in the alley was short-lived.

We went to bed early.  It was still hot.   We each found a comfortable spot, stayed as still as humanly possible,  and sweat through the night.   The only breeze that anyone felt that night was when my dad farted.  And that was welcome relief.

The next morning, after breakfast, Dad checked us out.   He explained to the clerk that our plans had changed and we were moving on.  The disappointed clerk said, “I hope you enjoyed your stay.”  Dad just paid the bill and we loaded into the car.

We drove to Nashville where Dad rented two motel rooms.  Mom and Dad stayed in one room with my two sisters.  I had a room all to myself.  I could watch anything that I wanted on TV and stayed up late.  It was great.  Being a single male entering puberty came with privileges.

Dad told us that since we had changed our plans our trip was going to cost more than he planned.   “We’ll have two meals a day and ice cream as a snack in the evening.  We don’t have a lot of extra spending money.”  Sounded perfect to me.

We spent most of the week at the motel swimming in the pool.   We visited a couple of sites within the town, but I don’t recall any.  I do remember that every time my parents tried to sneak in a late night swim, my five-year old sister, Jackie, shimmied her way into her wet bathing suit so she could join them.

That trip took place sixty years ago this summer.   The stories that my dad told about our time in Red Boiling Springs grew in stature through each retelling.  The facts remained the same, but the misery and disappointment increased over the years.

In 1969 Red Boiling Springs was flooded when a sudden rainfall dumped 6.8 inches of rain.   Parts of the town were totally lost. (I hope that the pool with the frogs is gone.)  Two young sisters drowned in the flood and there is a local park named in their honor.

Today the area still has at least one hotel that offers mineral baths.   Most people have forgotten the healing powers that the waters offered.   Water from the springs is bottled by Nestle’ Corporation.  I think that there’s irony in the fact that my daughter-in-law, Lindsay, works for Nestle’.  She’s not in charge of water acquisition, but she serves a key role within the company.

I’ve read that Nestle’  removes many of the minerals found naturally in the Red Boiling Springs water and adds some of its own.  If it’s on the internet it must be true.  I’ll check with Lindsay.  She’ll know for sure.