Indian Springs

Last time I mentioned Saratoga Springs, located in southwestern McDonald County, as an example of a town that was founded during the mineral-water craze of the early 1880s. Although it was briefly popular as a medical resort shortly after it opened, it never really caught on the way some of the other spring-water towns, like Eureka Springs, did. Another mineral-water town that was founded in McDonald County shortly after Saratoga Springs, however, did rival Eureka Springs in popularity, at least briefly among Joplinites. Indian Springs was laid out in July of 1881 on Indian Creek in the northern part of McDonald County. The growth of the place was so rapid that by August of the same year the founders were already laying out additions to the town, and the population soared, reportedly approaching 2,000 people at its peak. Among the visitors to Indian Springs during the summer and early fall of 1881 was a steady stream of folks from Joplin looking for a little relaxation and spa treatment. The greater popularity of Indian Springs over Saratoga Springs with Joplinites can be partially explained by the simple fact that it was closer to Joplin, but also Indian Springs was better organized and promoted. However, its popularity, too, like that of Saratoga Springs, soon ran its course, and by the turn of the twentieth century when its name was changed to McNatt (after the town's founder), Indian Springs was little more than a wide place in the road.

Saratoga Springs

When I was discussing on this blog a year or so ago the mineral water craze that sprang up in the Ozarks (and elsewhere) during the 1880s, I think Saratoga Springs, a town in McDonald County, Missouri, was among the examples I cited. Recently, while perusing the 1881 Joplin Daily Herald, I ran across a column written by a reporter who had taken a trip from Joplin to the fledgling community of Saratoga Springs in the late summer of 1881. The reporter said there were, at the time of his visit, two grocery stores and a drug store in the town as well as three or four dozen "summer houses" made of native lumber. Four or five springs flowed from a ravine below the town, but no medical qualities were claimed for even the largest of the group, which was dubbed the "Liz Weaver." In additon, the community had no organized town company or leaders working on behalf of building the place up. So, the reporter held out little hope that the town would flourish, and, of course, he turned out to be right. Today, Saratoga (the "Springs" part has been dropped from the name) is barely a wide place in the road on Highway 90 between Noel and Southwest City.
One place that did prosper, though, was Eureka Springs. It was tremendously popular, at least among Joplin citizens, from its very founding. It amazes me, in reading 1880s Joplin newspapers, how often I run into items reporting that a certain citizen was in Eureka Springs or had just returned from there. And I'm sure Eureka Springs was almost as popular with other residents of the Ozarks as it was with Joplinites.

Saratoga Springs

As I think I mentioned in one of my previous posts about mineral water towns, some of them, like Eureka Springs and Siloam Springs, continued to flourish even after the mineral water craze passed, but a lot of them faded into obscurity almost as rapidly as they sprang up. One of the latter was Saratoga Springs in McDonald County, Missouri.
Located at the edge of Cowskin Prairie in Prairie Township in the southwest part of the county, Saratoga Springs was laid out in 1880, and three additions were laid out the following year. For a year or two, according to Sturges's History of McDonald County, the town "promised to be a place of some importance" and "had the prettiest location and most abundant water supply of all the medical towns." Many houses were erected, several business buildings went up, and even a newspaper "flourished in its palmiest days." By the time Sturges's history was published in 1897, though, "the pride of her glory" had already "long since departed" and "the bloom of her beauty faded slowly away." Only a few residences, a post office, and a couple of small stores remained at the "once promising little city."
Today Saratoga Springs still exists but only as a wide place in the road on Highway 90 about halfway between Noel and Southwest City, and it is known nowadays as Saratoga, without the "Springs."