Elixir Springs, Dallas County

Recently, I've been writing about small communities that flourished briefly in the late 1800s or early 1900s but that no longer exist (or barely so). A couple of weeks ago I wrote about Chalybeate Springs in Lawrence County (MO). Another community that was founded because of the supposed healing waters of its springs but is now defunct was Elixir Springs in northern Dallas County. (Not to be confused with a resort by the same name that was planned in Miller County but never really got off the ground.)

The first mention of Elixir Springs I found was in a July 1881 issue of the Buffalo Reflex. According to this report, Elixir Springs was "fast becoming a popular resort." Two or three hundred people had visited the springs on the previous Sunday. The Reflex ventured that most of the visitors were there out of mere curiosity but that some of them claimed the water of the springs had healing or "medicinal qualities of a high order" and were there for the purpose of "partaking of its life-giving properties."

A month later, the Reflex reported that Elixir Springs was continuing to boom with a lot of buildings being constructed and "a great number of people camped on the ground. Hundreds visit it daily."

A post office called Elixir was established at the site in 1882. That summer, a "grand picnic" was held at Elixir Springs to celebrate the place's one-year anniversary, and it proved to be "a very pleasant affair."

Again, in the summer of 1883, Elixir Springs held a big picnic to celebrate its two-year anniversary. In the lead-up to the event, the Reflex predicted that it would be the biggest gathering of the season in Dallas County.  

By the summer of 1884, however, the springs of Elixir had become a laughingstock. Apparently, the people had begun to realize that the waters actually contained no medicinal or healing powers. At a big picnic held elsewhere in Dallas County that summer, when one speechmaker suggested with tongue-in-cheek that he thought the picnic was being held to commemorate the discovery of the Elixir Springs, the crowd burst out laughing because the springs were already "things of the past."

Despite the demise of the springs at Elixir, the little community itself, which was located about six miles northeast of Urbana, hung on quite a while longer and did not lose its post office until 1906.

I think Linda Crawford of the Dallas County Historical Society has done a lot or research about Elixir Springs and the community of Elixir and maybe even written a book about them.