Maybe you’ve just taken a passing glance at some of our
historical relics in the display cases around French Lick Springs Hotel. Maybe
you’ve stopped, knelt down and taken a little more time to examine these pieces
of our past.
Either way, we’re giving you more of a close-up today with
our historical relics. Let’s crack open the display cases for a better look at
some of the context and history behind these historical items.
Since it's Derby weekend, we'll lead off with this gold racehorse and jockey statue, which is among several Kentucky Derby-related items in our archives. The badge under the horse reads "French Lick Springs Hotel, home of Pluto, The Kentucky Derby 1930." Hotel guests used to stay at the hotel and ride the trains to Churchill Downs on Derby day.
This plate which dates to about 1905 is rare, as it shows the lobby of French Lick Springs Hotel when the front desk faced the front doors. On vintage dishes like this, it's common to see the exterior of buildings, but interior views are rarely shown.
Remember the days prior to hotel key cards? This skeleton key from West Baden Springs Hotel was returned by a couple who stayed here for their honeymoon in 1916.
You almost have to be able to touch these to appreciate their uniqueness, but these postcards from pre-1907 are made of leather and still contain the original stamp. (Note the postage price: 1 cent.) Leather postcards were fairly common back in that era and went through the post office just like a normal postcard would.
Some of the dishware used a century ago had iridescent qualities, like these glasses and cups with a yellowish tint. Custard glasses, like the one in the middle, contained gold detailing on the rim.
These dippers were used to retrieve mineral water straight from the springs in the early 1900s. You'd need a 360-degree view to see all the writing that wraps around the glass, but you can probably make out "West Baden" where their version was called Sprudel Water. (The mineral waters at French Lick Springs Hotel were called Pluto Water.)
Speaking of Pluto, the devilish likeness of French Lick's Pluto was found on everything back then, from hotel stationery to this unique Pluto ceramic container.
This is a mini bank registry book from a local resident in town. The West Baden National Bank used to be located inside West Baden Springs Hotel, until it was moved to a separate building near the archway entrance to make all the local foot traffic less disruptive to hotel guests. This page of the bank book shows transactions from September and October of 1929, which was just prior to the famed stock market crash of October 29, 1929, which launched the Great Depression.
Cue the "Dust on the Bottle" tune for this one....
We have a dark-colored bottles like this in our resort collection which are the oldest known bottles of the Pluto mineral water. These date back to circa 1901, and while this specific bottle isn't in a display case, there's a similar one in a case on the upper level of the Event Center. The Pluto water was bottled in an amber bottle, as they believed it kept the contents fresher.
At French Lick Springs Hotel, smaller clear bottles were laid at each guestroom door each morning during this era. You could just step outside your door and get your day started with the amount of mineral water that was prescribed to you on a card placed in your room.
These bottles came to us from a woman in Wisconsin whose dad had been a collector. We're constantly seeking out relics from our hotels' past through several different means, and these bottles are just one example of the things that we manage to turn up that are more than 100 years old.
This rare metal tray from the 1910s depicts three prominent structures from that time: Our Lady of the Lourdes Catholic Cathedral (which was torn down in the 1930s), West Baden Springs Hotel and Spring No. 5 Neptune Pavilion, which was removed in the 1910s.
While French Lick and West Baden Springs Hotel each had their own custom china and dishes created just for them, several shops in town would sell these plates with the renderings of the hotels on them. The creator of this West Baden plate took a few artistic licenses. Notice anything that looks off? For starters, the embellishment and the flag on the very top of the dome. There's also about twice as many towers as there should be, and the extra sub-buildings, landscaping and roads were all added for artistic flair.
They just don't make stuff like this anymore...
The 3-D replica of the Pluto Spring House was created as a keepsake for collectors. A limited number of these 3-inch souvenirs were made and numbered before the mold was broken. (This one in our collection is No. 22.) And this oddly shaped 4-inch souvenir vase, with French Lick Springs Hotel depicted on the front, was made in Germany for the McCoy Drug Co. store that was once located in downtown French Lick. This dates to about 1910.
....But it comes with a special accessory on top. This teacup was served to men to block the liquid they were drinking from getting into their mustaches. A definite sign of the times from the 1910s.