Friday, July 25, 2008

White Springs Florida Spring House 1920s

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Today's postcards were meant to be the blog of the day due to a stroke of serendipity. This morning I sold the first post card below and while looking it up on my website I noticed the second post card from White Springs Florida. The first view is the exterior of the Spring House on the Suwannee River in White Springs Florida and is a 1949 Curteich postcard. Bryant Sheffield bought land for a plantation in 1835 that included this land along the Suwannee River and began to tout the the healing powers of the sulfurous spring water he found there which had been used for years as an ancient healing site. People listened and he built a log hotel there and Florida's first tourist destination was in business. A log spring house was also built around the spring and remained until 1903 when Minnie Mosher Jackson built the concrete and coquina walls which contained a four story interior that had treatment rooms and a concession area as well as an elevator. Other buildings are also visible which were probably guest accommodations. You can see the water flowing out of the building into the river but the true beauty of this establishment is not evident.

The second postcard is an interior view and now the magic of the building becomes evident. You can see all four layers with the swimming pool on the bottom and the open air fourth floor which is visible in the postcard above. This interior postcard with a Victorian atmosphere appears to be a 1920s era view. This post card can be found along with 10,000 more post cards on my website Moody's Postcards.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

When I was 3 years old in 1966....my parents along with some relatives visited this springhouse.
Years later I told my father about the trip, watching them jump in from different levels, the ladies wearing bathing caps and he was astonished that I could remember that at such a young age. I remember it well, the old wooden building. I went back in the late 90's to find only some concrete walls , but I could almost hear the laugher and splashing of over 30 years earlier