Recovering pieces of our past is always exciting — and it’s even more exhilarating when it’s a surprise discovery.
That happened a while back when we recovered these three old accounting journals used in the 1920s at French Lick and West Baden Springs Hotels. We discovered these relics after they had made their rounds at nearby antique shops, and now these historic registers will be among the special displays set up around the resort at Preservation Month coming up soon all throughout May.
The smaller book in the middle of the stack is from West Baden Springs Hotel, detailing the hotel’s daily records from January 1, 1921 through September 30, 1923.
Each day breaks down the earnings from hotel reservations, the cafeteria, grill, bar, bath (spa) and cigar stand. The cigar stand had a prominent location in the hotel — it was located right off the lobby, where the library is today.
Both hotels prospered in the 1920s, even as prohibition was taking its toll on similar hotels and resorts. West Baden Springs Hotel advertised itself as featuring 700 rooms (though the actual number was likely lower), while French Lick Springs Hotel had more than 100,000 visitors annually during the 1920s.
There were the occasional lulls in occupancy. This register from French Lick Springs Hotel shows just one guest on the books for the day after Christmas in 1927...
...But business picked up in a hurry a few days later for New Year's Day in 1928.
These two registers we recovered from French Lick Springs Hotel are from the 1926-28 time period and contain the names of the guests who checked into the hotel, along with the charges they accrued and some numerical bookkeeping notations. There's still some mystery as to what some of the numbers actually mean.
But really, the numbers kind of take a backseat to this immaculate cursive writing of the front desk staffers who entered each guest's name by hand. It's so perfect, it almost looks like a computer-generated script font.
A sign of the times: Guests were sometimes registered as "J.A. Lewis & Wife" like the last name listed here below:
Isn't there something about getting a glimpse into how simple life was almost 100 years ago, when all this bookkeeping was accomplished with pen and paper instead of computer?
Things have changed over the years, but one thing hasn't: This is still a place where you come to slow down and enjoy life.
