Mystery Items from West Baden: Can You Help Us Solve the Puzzle?

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Maybe you hold the key to some of the pieces of our past.

Last week we filled you in about the new West Baden Springs Hotel Museum and some of the cool old relics you can see there. A few of them are so vintage that we’re not even sure exactly what they are or how they were used. And then there’s a pesky missing item that we’d love to find.

Any info for us? Leave a comment our Facebook page, or even shoot us an email.


Mystery Item #1

If you visit the museum, you’ll notice these “mystery items” are labeled with a description and date, though it’s just an educated guess at this point.

So for now, we’re calling this a “tilting decanter.” Stands to reason, because the jug portion can swivel from its upright position — maybe a fancy device for easy pouring of wine or another beverage.

The round metal pieces on both sides might have held glasses or small containers of some sort, but it’s tough to tell. The engraved “West Baden Springs” metal shield on the front gives us the impression it dates to circa 1920, or thereabouts.

The only thing we do know? It would have been so much fun to be around a century or so ago to see how this item was actually used during the golden age of the hotel.

Mystery Item #2

This one’s more of a stumper.

A wooden jug?...canister?...container? Whatever it is, this lightweight cylindrical relic looks old-school to the core. The top is sealed with a cork, and there looks to be remnants where a handle was attached.

The label features a picture of the hotel along with the words “open all the year” and “fireproof.” Both a big deal during that time — many hotels were only open seasonally, and several succumbed to fire, including the original West Baden Springs Hotel that burned to the ground in 1901. That leads us to estimate this fireproof-touting-canister is from circa 1910, or perhaps earlier.

Also interesting to note how so many of these functional, everyday items the hotel used in the late 1800s/early 1900s displayed the West Baden name. Even 100 years ago, branding was alive and well.

 

The Missing Item(s)

What’s dinner without a dinner plate?

In one of the glass display cases, we’ve assembled a place setting with the green band china you’d have eaten off at the hotel’s restaurant. This dishware was used throughout the 1920s until the hotel closed in 1932.

The place setting features cups and saucers and creamers and a gravy boat, and even a few rare dishes unique to the era like a relish dish and a two-handled cup. The one thing it’s missing? A dinner plate. Maybe there’s some that survived over the years, but our collection is without one for now. (We improvised by putting the covered salad plate front and center.) We’re also missing a few pieces of hotel silverware, including a knife and dessert spoon, with the letters “WBSH” on the front of the handle.

Even without a dinner plate, you can see the expanse of this place setting and see how nightly dinner at the restaurant was *quite* the production back in the day.