Ever look out your window during a stay at West Baden Springs Hotel and have a moment of reflection? Maybe a jolt of inspiration as well?
You might be gazing on the same views and channeling the
same types of emotions that inspired the composer of Indiana’s state song 125
years ago.
Chalk up this fun fact to add to the thick history book at West Baden Springs Hotel: It’s believed that Paul Dresser composed at least part of “On the Banks of the Wabash, Far Away” while he vacationed at West Baden in late spring of 1897.
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| The original West Baden Springs Hotel in the late 1800s. |
This is going way, way back in hotel history. Because this wasn’t the West Baden Springs Hotel as we know it today.
Back then, the hotel was a large, country-style inn. The modern-day
West Baden Springs Hotel didn’t come along until a few years later in 1902
after a fire claimed the original structure. Around 1897, the major news of the
day around hotel grounds was the recent opening of the multi-level bicycle
track, the only covered track of its kind in the world.
Then Paul Dresser came along and used West Baden as the backdrop
for his legendary composition.
It’s believe that Dresser composed “On the Banks of the
Wabash, Far Away” over the course of a few months — starting it in New York
City, finishing it in Chicago, and working on it in between during a sojourn to
West Baden.
The hotel newspaper, the West Baden Journal, documented
Dresser’s arrival at the hotel in its May 11, 1897 issue: “Paul Dresser registered
last week on a first visit to West Baden. Mr. Dresser is a gentleman of large
proportions, genial and polished.”
In a newspaper article published after Dresser’s death in
1906, Dresser’s process was revealed:
“One evening in the spring of 1897 the song writer
arrived at West Baden, Ind. He was ill and tired and his mind was filled with
evil forebodings. On his way across the state he had stopped at Terre Haute and
visited the old home, where he had spent his early days. He saw the sparkling
waters of the Wabash. He saw the moonlight reflected on the surface and he saw
the candle lights twinkling in the cottages through the tall sycamores on
the banks. The memories of the past came before him like a dream. His heart was
filled with sorrow and tenderness. At West Baden he asked for the key to the
theater, and passing through the long and gloomy hall he sat before the piano
and in the fading light he played slowly the notes of his famous song, which
came to him without effort. The words of the first verse, the chorus and the
music were composed that night in a few minutes. On the next day he wrote the
second verse, and the song, which was soon published, became popular from the
start.”
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| A water wagon in front of the West Baden Opera House, where some of Paul Dresser's songs were performed. |
“On the Banks of the Wabash” was released just a few months
after being written, and quickly became a
best seller not just in Indiana but nationally. The song earned Dresser more
than $100,000 from sheet music sales — about $3.5 million today. It officially
became the state song of Indiana in 1913, seven years after Dresser’s death.
And it all started from a room somewhere inside West Baden
Springs Hotel — not too far away from the Banks of the Wabash, after all.
Oh, the moonlight's fair tonight along the Wabash,
From the fields there comes the breath of newmown hay.
Through the sycamores the candle lights are gleaming,
On the banks of the Wabash, far away.