Red Sulphur Springs was part of a social phenomenon centered in the nineteenth century and shared by over one hundred similar health and entertainment watering places in the borderland mountains of the Virginias. Today, just two remain in business: The Greenbrier of White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, and The Homestead of Hot Springs, Virginia. These mineral springs varied in composition as well as their purported cures. Red Sulphur Springs specialized in tuberculosis, which in those days was called consumption.
A cast of characters owned "The Red" - from pioneer Nicholas Harvey who erected a set of log cabins on the site in 1795, to polymath William Burke who built the cottage rows in the 1830s and wrote very entertaining books about the experience, to local farmer Addison Dunlap and brothers who ran it during the heyday of the mid-century, to U.S. Vice President Levi P. Morton who applied his wealth to the resort and its neighborhood for a number of improvements from the 1890s well into the 1910s.
For the time traveler, this book is well-illustrated with vintage photographs, event tables to document each stage in development, and period newspaper articles and advertisements. In addition to the history of ownership of the springs, it covers the effect of both epidemic and business cycles in the mountains of rural West Virginia, the evolution of transportation prior to the railroad for visitors who traveled hundreds of miles, as well as the earth science behind the various minerals that find their way to the surface springs.