Guests on the front porch of the Bon Aqua Hotel in Hickman County in the 1870s (TN State Library and Archives photo)
There was once a time when people took simple vacations at the resort hotel in the next county.
They spent weeks or months at these hotels. They would relax, read, write letters, wade in the creek, play croquet, pool, tennis and “ten pins” (what we now call bowling). They ate big breakfasts in the morning and fried chicken dinners in late afternoon.
Most of all, they would drink mineral water that came out of the ground.
“From as far away as New Orleans, they came to take the cooling medicinal waters from such springs as Beersheba, Kingston, Red Boiling or Tyree,” a Tennessean story said in 1955.
Guests at Rutherford County’s Jefferson Springs Hotel take a dip in Stones River (MTSU photo)
From about 1820 until about 1930, Tennessee had about 70 mineral springs hotels. They ranged in size from small businesses such as Cheatham County’s Sams Creek Springs to Anderson County’s 250-room Oliver Springs Hotel.
Some, like Hickman County’s Primm Springs Hotel, were owned and operated by three generation of the same family for a century. Others, such as Franklin County’s Norton Hotel, were corporately financed, changed names several times, went bankrupt more than once, and operated for less than a generation.
History at the Hotel
A lot of Tennessee history happened at these mineral springs hotels.
James K. Polk picked his cabinet at Grundy County’s Beersheba Springs Hotel between the November 1840 election and his March 1841 inaugural.
In 1865, the Lookout Mountain House boasted that it had a battle there just a year before (Knoxville Whig Aug 16, 1865)
In 1864, the Lookout Mountain House hotel had a Civil War battle in its front yard. When it reopened the next year, ads said its guests could explore the site of the battle “before the marks of war are entirely effaced.”
On July 9, 1925, people on both sides of the famous Scopes Trial visited the Morgan Springs Hotel in Rhea County. William Jennings Bryan made a speech there which turned out to be one of his last. He died two weeks later.
By 1933, Monroe County’s White Cliff Springs Hotel had been closed for more than twenty years. Finally, the owner of the property started tearing the place down, selling its doors, columns, stairways and bannisters. His name? Harry Burn – the same man who, in 1920, had cast the 50th and decisive vote in the Tennessee House of Representatives that ensured passage of the Nineteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
“The Auto Did It In”
Letters such as this one were published in newspapers by hotels to convince people that mineral waters cured various diseases (Nashville Whig, Aug. 31, 1813)
In the 1800s, a lot of people thought mineral water was like medicine. If someone was ailing, they would check into a mineral springs hotel in hopes that drinking mineral water several times a day would improve their health. Eventually, as medical science improved, many people stopped believing in the healing powers of mineral water, which is one of the reasons people stopped going to springs hotels.
However, what really wiped out Tennessee’s mineral springs hotels was the automobile. When people started getting cars, and as roads improved, they abandoned these simple hotels and started vacationing in places further away and more scenic such as beaches on the Gulf of Mexico and the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
The Tennessean once published a story about Cheatham’s County’s Craggie Hope Hotel. A reporter asked Georgia Treanor, who worked at the hotel for many years, why it closed. Her five-word answer: “The auto did it in.”
Mineral Springs Hotels at places like Rogers Springs (shown here) had structures near the spring, where people could lounge about while drinking the spring water. (TN State Library and Archives photo)
Meanwhile, as if on cue, many of the mineral springs themselves vanished. In 1948, Vanderbilt geologist George Mayfield wrote a Nashville Banner article about the decline of spring resorts. He pointed out that many of their springs had dried up. “There are many persons alive in this part of Tennessee who used to enjoy their vacations at such gay resorts as Estill Springs, Bon Air Springs, Clarktown Springs, Beersheba Springs,” and so on. “In most cases the waters are now but a trickle as compared with 50 years ago,” Mayfield wrote.
Forgotten
Today, most people don’t even know these resort hotels existed.
This sign in Pigeon Forge shows where the Henderson Springs Hotel used to be.
Few residents of Memphis are aware that the part of town called Raleigh used to be the site of a large mineral springs hotel where rich people once vacationed.
Almost no one who lives in Williamson County knows about the Fernvale Springs Hotel – other than Governor Bill Lee, who owns the land on which it once sat. “I know exactly where the hotel foundation was,” he says, when asked about it.
Andrew Jackson and James K. Polk were among the frequent guests at the White Creek Springs resort in Davidson County, and there is a public high school near site called Whites Creek High School. But almost no one who lives near the former site of the hotel knows the hotel existed.
The Tate Springs Hotel in 1940 (TVA photo)
Pigeon Forge now has more than 10,000 hotel rooms. A little-noticed sign marks the spot of the Henderson Springs Hotel — for many years the only hotel in that part of Sevier County.
Today, the entire East Tennessee county of Grainger has less than 50 hotel rooms. However, Grainger County used to have the largest hotel in the state. The Tate Springs Hotel had 400 rooms, a ballroom, swimming pool, bathhouse, golf course and tennis courts. It declined after the 1920s, was converted to an orphanage in 1943, and burned down in 1963.
Up in Smoke
An ad for the Horn Springs Hotel in Wilson County (Nashville Banner, July 8, 1928)
The Tate Springs Hotel wasn’t the only old resort hotel that met its fate by fire. Most mineral springs hotels were made of wood and far from cities. Most of them had crude electrical systems and were heated by fireplaces. When these hotels caught fire, there was nothing their owners could do other than alert the guests and watch.
A story about the Horn Springs Hotel in 1949 (Tennessean; June 27, 1949)
The biggest resort hotel fires in Tennessee history were the Oliver Springs Hotel in 1905, the Lookout Inn in 1908 and the Tate Springs Hotel.
Blount County’s Montvale Springs Hotel burned down twice – the original in 1896, and the larger hotel built in its place in 1933.
Hamilton County’s Cliffs Hotel burned down in 1904 and again in 1908.
The Hinson Springs Hotel in Henderson County three times — in 1882, and in 1896, and in 1913.
There were two resort hotels in Robertson County – the Hygiea Springs Hotel and the Villa Crest Hotel. Both burned in 1928.
The Donoho Hotel in 2023
As recently as October 2025, there were still three mineral springs hotels in the Macon County town of Red Boiling Springs: the Donoho Hotel (built in 1916); the Armour’s Hotel, (built 1924) and the Thomas Hotel (built in (1927). In Red Boiling Springs, you could still drink mineral water and take a bath in mineral water.
The Donoho Hotel burns on Nov. 12, 2025 (Nick Beres photo)
However, the Donoho Hotel, burned down on November 11, 2025 — leaving only two mineral spring hotels in a state that once had about 70.
