By guest blogger Steve Fox
After four years of brutal World War I trench warfare,
several hotels in Europe and the U.S. had morphed into temporary military
hospitals to heal the wounded. At one such hotel in Milan, Italy, an
impressionable 18-year-old American ambulance driver would strike up a romance
with his Red Cross nurse. But upon his return home to Chicago, the lovestruck
young man would receive a heart-crushing letter from that love of his life,
nurse Agnes. She wrote that she loved him more as a mother than sweetheart. The
devastated young man sought solace by putting his own words to paper. He would write movingly of nurse Agnes in his
first novel, “The Sun Also Rises.” Soon, the world would become acquainted with
the literary talents of Ernest Hemingway.
Some 4,600 miles to the west
from Milan, a rural Southern Indiana hotel, noted for its healing mineral
springs waters, also transformed into a military hospital, becoming U.S. Army
Hospital 35. Since its opening in 1902,
the West Baden Springs Hotel had won accolades as one of America’s grandest
architectural feats as the nation’s largest free-standing domed structure. From
October 1918 to April 1919, “The Eighth Wonder of the World” became a healing
site for some 2,200 American soldiers receiving treatment for battlefield
wounds, before their discharge or reassignment.
The soldiers’ visit and the
armistice that ended World War I on Nov. 11, 1918 inspired the Dome’s owner,
Lillian Sinclair, to throw an all-day Christmas Day party in 1918 to celebrate
the American soldiers’ return and the war’s end — one of the most joyful,
festive, and roaring good times in the dome’s history.
In the hotel’s immense,
237,000 square-foot atrium, a 45-foot holiday tree and a circus tent arose, and
an orchestra filled the rotunda with Christmas music.
The circus’s owner, native son Ed Ballard, loved the hotel. He got his start in the hospitality business as a young boy at the old hotel’s bowling alley. Ballard grew up to become one of the community’s colorful characters and a successful casino entrepreneur. He also owned and operated the Hagenbeck-Wallace circus, second in size only to Ringling Brothers. The French Lick/West Baden community became the wintering and training grounds for the Ballard circus.
For the gala Christmas Day
party in 1918, Ballard brought clowns, elephants, an equestrian act and a lion performance
— a trainer and five roaring lions — onto the domed atrium floor to jump
through hoops for the wide-eyed soldiers. For those honored guests unable to
walk to the atrium, hospital nurses moved the wounded warriors to the balconies
and windows of rooms overlooking the atrium from above to view the activities
below.
Perhaps it was fitting that
Lillian’s hotel hosted soldiers looking forward to new lives at a celebration
commemorating Christendom’s most famous birth, as the hotel itself had enjoyed
an extraordinary new birth of its own. Seventeen years earlier, in the wee
hours of June 14, 1901, a kitchen fire engulfed the original West Baden Springs
Hotel. The building, then a wood-framed tinderbox, burned to the ground in 90
minutes. Despairing of his loss, hotel owner and Lillian’s dad, Lee Sinclair,
then 65, considered retiring. But due in large part to Lillian’s encouragement,
he decided to rebuild and create a hotel like none other in the Midwest, U.S.,
or world for that matter. The vast dome
sprang from Lee’s fertile vision, as he loved the domed cathedrals like St.
Peter’s in Rome that he had visited.
Lee’s dome, designed by
34-year-old West Virginia architect Harrison Albright and built by Caldwell
& Drake of Columbus, Ind., opened in 1902. Incredibly, it was constructed
within the one-year anniversary of the fire. The grand dome originally held the
distinction of the world’s largest free-standing dome. It remained the largest
in America until the modern sports domes came on the scene in the 1950s and
‘60s.
After her father’s death in 1916,
Lillian, quite a visionary herself, undertook a major makeover of the hotel
property and grounds. Lillian loved all things Italian and converted the
property adjacent to the hotel into a Romanesque garden and the hotel’s atrium
into a Pompeian Court.
Much of the makeover
investment occurred as the U.S. was entering World War I, resulting in a
decline of guests and revenue flowing into the hotel. That’s when the opportunity to convert the
hotel to a 1918 military hospital allowed Lillian to perform a public service
and offset the loss of revenue and makeover costs as well.
Happily for Lillian and
unhappily for Ernie, who could never quite get over the loss of his first love
Agnes, Lillian sold her hotel in 1922 to the circus owner, Ed Ballard, divorced
Charles, and married Lieutenant Cooper, who became a successful insurance
industry executive. The couple moved to Santa Monica, California, and lived a
long and happy life together.
Happily ever after also describes
the newest chapter for the domed hotel, as a place of remarkable architectural
innovation and colorful stories living on in the 21st century. After a
multi-million-dollar renovation in the mid-2000s that rescued the deteriorating
hotel from a near state of disrepair, guests today see the hotel as it looked
following Lillian’s grand makeover, completed as America entered The Great War.
The dome remains the dramatic highlight of a dynamic resort property, thanks to
the Cook family, Indiana Landmarks, and all involved in one of Indiana’s
greatest rescues.
About Steve Fox: The author
is a retired corporate speech writer, free-lance writer, and Indiana Landmarks
volunteer tour guide at West Baden Springs Hotel.