Chalybeate Springs

I've written on this blog several times in the past about communities throughout Missouri and the Ozarks that sprang up as mineral water resorts during the late 1800s. One such place that I was not familiar with until recently, however, was Chalybeate Springs, in northeastern Lawrence County, Missouri. 

Located about four miles west of Halltown and about a half-mile north of Old Route 66, the place was originally called Johnson's Mill after a mill that was built on nearby Clover Creek (now Turnback Creek) about 1855. The name was soon changed to Chalybeate Springs after the supposed healing properties of a spring just east of the creek were discovered. The name derived from the fact that the water contained and was flavored with iron salts.

Chalybeate Springs was established as a resort by D. C. Allen about 1867, making it one of the earliest mineral-water resorts in the Ozarks. The fame of the springs, however, predated establishment of the resort, as the place was known for its supposed healing waters even before the Civil War. 

The resort became even more popular in 1872, when E. G. Paris opened a large hotel at the site. A post office called Chalybeate Springs was established at the site about the same time that the hotel was completed. The name of the post office and the community was changed to Paris Springs in 1874, although the springs themselves were still often referred to as the Chalybeate Springs. The springs were advertised in the newspapers of Springfield and other regional towns, and the place thrived throughout the late 1800s and into the early 1900s under Paris's promoting hand. In addition to the hotel, Paris Springs also boasted a general store, a wagon-maker, a shoemaker, a blacksmith, a livery stable, a livestock dealer, and an attorney-at-law. 

Advertisement from a 1870s Springfield newspaper.

Paris Springs reached a peak in popularity as a mineral-water resort about 1906, but it soon began to decline after that. The hotel closed around 1914 or shortly afterwards, and the abandoned hotel burned in 1917. The final death knell for the community sounded when its post office was discontinued in 1920.

When Route 66 was constructed in 1926, it bypassed Paris Springs by a half-mile or so to the south, and a new community called Paris Springs Junction sprang up at the Route 66 turnoff in order to cater to passing motorists. Among the businesses erected at the turnoff was a Sinclair service station. In 1961, Route 66 was realigned, bypassing both Paris Springs and Paris Springs Junction. Then, when I-44 was built in the mid-1960s, it bypassed the entire section of Route 66 from Halltown to Joplin by several miles.  

The service station at Paris Springs Junction burned in 1955. However, a replica of the station was built across the road many years later, and it is now about the only thing that remains at Paris Springs Junction. As for Paris Springs, nothing remains there to suggest the place was ever a booming resort.