Tom & Lil's Trip - Summer of 2003

We Go to Monticello - Bement

I took a week off in July mainly to use up some vacation time as my employer (Purdue University) has a policy of "use it or lose it." Since we hadn't made any formal plans, we decided on visiting some relatives in the neighboring state of Illinois and then swinging back through southern Indiana and seeing the restored West Baden Springs Hotel near French Lick.

We first drove to Monticello, Illinois which is about 120 miles from our home. We checked into a hotel and over the next two days proceeded to visit with some aunts and cousins that Lil hadn't seen in a long while - they all live in Monticello and Bement. I'll dispense with details here as this kind of stuff is family oriented and probably wouldn't be of that much interest to the casual reader.

On the second day, we had the afternoon to ourselves and visited Allerton Park. This is situated on land acquired during the 1800s by livestock baron Samuel Allerton (1828-1914), a founder of the Chicago Union Stockyards and the First National Bank of Chicago. When Robert Henry Allerton (Samuel Allerton's son and heir) completed his art studies in Europe, he returned to Illinois primed with all sorts of notions about formal English gardens and layouts. He settled at one of the family's farms near Monticello. By the late 1890s, his holdings of several thousand acres along the Sangamon River featured tidy farmsteads, pastures, and more than 1,000 acres of forest. A private estate with formal gardens, an extensive landscaped park dotted with ornaments and fine art, and a manor house modeled after Ham House in England emerged during the next 50 years, under the careful supervision of Robert Allerton and his adopted son, John Gregg Allerton. In 1946 Robert Allerton decided that the woodland property should become a conservation area devoted to education, recreation and research. Today, his wonderful gift to the citizens of Illinois is maintained for public use and education by the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana.

I really don't know if Allerton's decision to give the property to the University was a stroke of genius or was merely fortuitous circumstance. The park is not on any major thoroughfare and, consequently, suffers much from lack of casual exposure and publicity. But, by getting it in the hands of a public University, Allerton insured that it would get regular maintenance and at least some usage (conferences, retreats, etc.). The scale of the place is simply mind boggling. You walk along through a formal garden one minute and then - bang - you find yourself in a rolling meadow. Then, all at once, you crest the top of a knoll and find yourself looking down a long avenue of pillars topped with Fu Dogs with stately pine trees in the background. One could easily spend an entire day here and still not see everything. One of the labyrinth hedge gardens reminds me a lot of a scene from the movie, "The Shining." As a little girl, Lil grew up near here and came here often with her parents.

Lil's favorite site is that of the Sun Singer . This is a huge bronze statue of the god, Apollo. It was commissioned to the Swedish artist Carl Milles by the Allertons who were of the impression that the finished work would be life sized. Imagine their shock to see the 16 foot tall bronze behemoth unveiled instead. To properly display this masterpiece, nothing would do but to have it displayed on a five acre site of its own with a huge concrete pedestal for Apollo to stand on and face the morning sunrise. One of Lil's cousins has an acquaintance who is adept at photography and took a haunting picture of the Hale-Bopp comet as it passed behind the Sun Singer in 1997.

Another site that is a favorite is the setting of The Death of the Last Centaur, by the eminent French artist Bourdelle, regarded by many of his contemporaries as the greatest sculptor of his generation. This is another bronze statue that is one of only five in the entire world. It is set on a huge site with Roman columns at a distance in all four cardinal directions.

If any of you are ever in central Illinois, especially in the Spring, Summer or Fall, I highly recommend that you take the time to go a bit out of your way to visit Allerton Park - you will not be disappointed. Here are some web sites:

http://www.conted.uiuc.edu/allerton/

http://jerry.cs.uiuc.edu/plop/allerton.html

We Go to Carbondale - Murphysboro

On Wednesday, we headed south for the Carbondale - Murphysboro area of Illinois. My cousin, Dave Fisher, and his wife, Ellie live in Murphysboro and we visited with them from late Wednesday afternoon to about noon on Thursday. Dave and Ellie showed us all around the area including a tour of the campus of Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. Lil and I have long noted that many gifted writers seem to have come from this area and we were curious as to the reason. We still think there may be something in the water....(grin - go, Salukis!). But the real highlight turned out to be a side trip to see a sandstone cliff area near the Mississippi river which contains several authenticated petroglyphs. This was way off the beaten path and I have no idea how Dave found out about this site. To be sure, there is some modern graffiti mixed in with the petroglyphs. However, most of the original cave drawings are there and the site is indeed impressive. This cave art is believed to date to the Middle Mississippian Period or AD 1200 - AD 1500. We didn't have to swear ourselves to secrecy - neither Lil nor I have a clue on how to get back to the place! Here is a URL that shows a picture similar to mine from this site:

We Go to French Lick

We left there early in the afternoon on Thursday and headed for French Lick, Indiana. We arrived at about 6:00 PM and easily found our way to the French Lick Springs Resort and Spa. We actually didn't have reservations but I was still able to get a room for the night. This hotel is huge and boasts nearly 500 sleeping rooms. It hearkens back to an elegant era that began in the mid 1850s or so. The original hotel burned in 1897 and shortly thereafter the ruins were purchased by a syndicate which called itself the French Lick Springs Hotel Co. - headed by the then mayor of Indianapolis, Thomas Taggart.

It was under Taggart's imaginative rule that French Lick Springs rocketed to international prominence. He first rebuilt a new main wing. He had the Monon Railroad lay a special track spur and run daily trains between Chicago and the front entrance of the hotel. He later designed a championship golf course. He modernized and expanded the baths and began bottling "Pluto Water" in concentrated form for national distribution. With an expansive and luxurious spa (and after Taggart had been named Democratic National Chairman in 1904), the elite of politics and society suddenly "discovered" French Lick Springs. It was at this hotel, too, in 1917 that tomato juice was first served, by world famous chef Louis Perrin.

Although he himself was no teetotaler, Taggart insisted that the resort maintain a rigidly elegant dedication to health and recreation - he never permitted liquor on the premises. The first bar was not opened, in fact until after Repeal, some years following the old man's demise. The wealthy celebrities who descended upon the little town in the Indiana hills each spring and fall came (1) to take "the cure", (2) to play, (3) to conduct business and (4) to gamble (understand - gambling was never legal in Indiana until late in the 20th century!).

Taggart always disclaimed any connection with plush gambling casinos throughout the valley. It never was however, officially explained how, in flagrant violation of state law, two big gambling rooms operated across the street from the hotel, perhaps half a dozen others catered to lesser hotel guests and common folk and, indeed at one time there was even a combination dice room and bowling alley right in the middle of the hotel's own Japanese gardens, near the Pluto Spring. In any event, French Lick Springs was to become as well known for it's resort facilities. The last casinos were shuttered in 1949.

Here's a web site (which was a source of much of the above info):

Today, at least IMHO, the old hotel is a bit threadbare and definitely too pricey. But, for a one night stay, it was nice to walk around and take in the grandeur of the place and imagine what it must have been in its heyday. And this was just piquing our appetites for Friday and our tour of the West Baden Springs Hotel!

We Go to West Baden Springs

Friday morning found us having a nice leisurely breakfast at the French Lick Hotel after which we checked out and drove a short distance to nearby West Baden Springs where we purchased our tickets for the guided tour of what some still call the "Eighth Wonder of the World" - the restored West Baden Springs Hotel. (Note: this particular picture is that of a miniature display that can be found in a guest shop in the lobby. I just stuck my camera up to the glass and shot!) Picking back up on the grandeur and opulence of the times just before and then including the "Roaring 20s," it was an era of great egos - especially among hotel owners and building architects. It was fashionable then for people of wealth to have their own private Pullman railcars brought to places such as French Lick and try to "one-up" each other. I liken it to today's tailgate parties that go on all across the country at college football games in the Fall. Now, in place of Pullman cars, people brag and try to outdo each other with their latest and greatest RV's, etc.

In 1888, Lee W. Sinclair, an Indiana banker and frequent West Baden guest, acquired controlling interest in the hotel. Eventually, Sinclair was its sole owner and he tuned the place into a resort, adding an opera house, a casino, a two-deck pony and bicycle track and a full-size baseball field.

In 1901 a fire destroyed the entire hotel. All the guests escaped unharmed. Sinclair used this as an opportunity to build the hotel of his dreams - along with the help of architect Harrison Albright. Sinclair's design ideas for the new hotel were considered outrageous. He wanted a circular building, topped by the world's largest dome, built as much as possible of non-flammable materials and decorated like the grandest spas of Europe - and he wanted the new hotel completed within the year. Sinclair ordered that the floor of the atrium - more than 200 feet in diameter - be made of the finest inlaid tiny terrazzo pieces. To accomplish this, he paid for an entire crew of workmen to be brought here from Italy. Then, in additon to their wages, Sinclair paid for their room and board for the entire time it took them to install the special floor.

In 1902, eleven months after construction began, the wondrous new hotel opened for business. Prominent Hoosiers officiated at the grand re-opening, the first of a long line of celebrities, sports figures, heads of state, artists and dignitaries who would flock to what was called the Eighth Wonder of the World. If the advertisements and press about the new hotel could be believed, the West Baden Springs Hotel truly deserved its reputation. Ads claimed the resort's mineral baths and drinking waters could cure more than 50 illnesses including cancer, sterility, sprains, and alcoholism. To give you some idea of the kind of showman Sinclair was and the flair he possessed, consider this: there were four natural springs on the property. However, he insisted that they be prominently labeled "No. 7, No. 12, etc" - giving the impression that there were far more than just the four!

In addition to the waters and world-class accommodations, there was golf, horseback riding, billiards, bowling, baseball, swimming, hiking on scenic trails, bicycling, and nightly theater. Guests never had to leave the hotel for anything: shops, a bank, barbers and even a stock brokerage firm operated within the grand atrium. Outside there were formal gardens and walking ares. Until the Houston Astrodome was built in 1965, the West Baden Springs Hotel was in fact the largest free standing roofed building on Earth. Birds flew from palm to palm in the 200-foot-diameter atrium, and a fireplace that burned 14-foot logs warmed the space on cool evenings.

It was a perennial vacation spot for the great and near-great during the first three decades of the 20th century. Guests included: "Diamond Jim" Brady and Al Capone, and entire professional baseball teams (the Chicago White Sox and Cubs and the Cincinnati Reds) who held spring training at the resort, Mayor "Big Bill" Thompson of Chicago, and New York Governor and Presidential Candidate Alfred E. Smith. In 1916, Sinclair died and his daughter and her husband took over the hotel's operation.

When the hotel served as an Army hospital after the outbreak of World War I, however, Lillian Sinclair Rexford fell in love with a recuperating officer. She divorced her husband, remarried and sold the hotel to Ed Ballard.

Well-known journalists and physicians began questioning the healing power of mineral springs. Although diehards still came to West Baden to "take the waters," another pastime quickly rose to fill the void. Gambling now flourished as the main attraction in the Springs Valley (and remember - gambling was never legal in Indiana at that time!).

Ballard gave local residents priority for resort jobs and even created jobs when the Depression hit. The loyalty this created among the townspeople may be the reason why no one ever criticized Ballard's gambling operations.

In 1929, the stock market crash came as a sudden and devastating shock to the Springs Valley. The stock exchange in the West Baden Springs Hotel reported the news of the stock market crash. Within four days, the Springs Valley establishments were virtually empty. Jobs simply vanished overnight. Although Ballard kept the West Baden Springs Hotel open through 1932, few guests visited.

In 1934, Ballard sold the West Baden Springs Hotel to the Jesuits for one dollar. After stripping the building of its elegant appointments, the Jesuits operated a seminary there for 30 years. They continue to maintain a cemetery on the property.

Here are some web sites (which were a source of much of the above info):

The place continued to change hands over the years and - sad to say - deteriorated badly from lack of much needed maintenance. A portion of one of the exterior walls even collapsed. After some half hearted restoration attempts all failed - mainly from lack of proper funding - serious efforts finally got underway in the early 1990s. There were several individuals and organizations involved and after spending nearly $31 million, the building was restored to pretty much the way it is today. Another $30 million or so will be needed to really bring it up to top shape with all the rooms renovated.

If you have never seen the inside of this building - well, words simply fail here. When I first saw this place about 25 years ago, it literally took my breath away. And then when you ponder the fact that they didn't have the big construction cranes back in the early 1900s - well, it boggles the mind! I was so inspired by this place that the experience eventually led to my building a huge sunroom on the south end of our home.

On display now (and for the rest of the Summer) are several vintage antique cars that date back to the time when Indiana was the automotive manufacturing center of the world. These cars are truly classics! Included are Auburns, Cords, Stutz, McFarlans, Haynes, Duesenbergs and Studebakers.

We left West Baden Springs early in the afternoon and had a nice leisurely trip back home by way of Bedford, Bloomington, Indy and then on old U.S. 52 which has become our favorite way to travel between Lafayette and Lebanon. It was a nice relaxing week where we really didn't have to meet many rigid time deadlines. All in all, we drove about 870 miles - I think this one might be called a "three tank trip!"

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tfisher@ceris.purdue.edu

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