While I was visiting Kansas City recently, USA Today came out with an article entitled "Ten Great Places to Take a Dip in Healing Waters." One of the places mentioned was Excelsior Springs, MO, about 28 miles north and east of KC. Having grown up in close proximity to Saratoga Springs, NY, I thought that I’d like to see the mineral waters and partake in the pleasures that Harry Truman and FDR did, as mentioned in the newspaper article.
I rented a car to take this short trip and asked the clerk at the car rental desk whether there was anything interesting in Excelsior Springs besides the mineral springs. He laughed a little and said, rather definitively, "The unemployment line. But, hey, don’t drive too fast on Route 69, you might miss the cut off for the town. The James boys did and look what happened to them!"
About 28 miles outside of KC, past the Wal-Mart and the Sinclair Dinosaur (that’s right, they still sell gas with the Sinclair logo in Missouri), and well beyond the "Kum & Go" gas station/rest stop and the Barbee Memorial Presbyterian Church, there’s a sign that says, "Excelsior Springs, The Hall of Waters." I followed the arrow pointing to a cut off exit road that, in helix formation, spiraled my car into the main road to town. I followed all the signs to The Hall of Waters, since this road started to look interesting. I turned right on Marietta Street to River Street, in between two abandoned behemoths of red-brick buildings, with broken windows and with doors perched precipitously on upper floors leading outside to what once were fire escapes. Any window not broken sported various obscenities.
One building had a sign for the Royal Hotel and Crown Room (which I later learned was originally called Snapp’s Hotel) and the other building had a sign for Mineral Water Baths at The Hotel Oaks. The next road sign to the Hall of Waters pointed down a little alley on South Street, which was closed and the street was dug up, so I continued straight on to the next turn off, which looked like a main street. After turning right, I noticed a sign for the Chamber of Commerce, and parked my car in front of the building. There were plenty of parking spots, as the street was somewhat abandoned, unusual for a Saturday afternoon. My rental car was, by far, the newest vehicle on the street as most cars were from the 1970s. Someone sped by in an old ’71 Skylark, a model which I had once owned, in the same condition I owned it – with rust-through holes and dents. A group of older teenagers was congregating nearby. The most distinguishing feature on these kids was that they all wore flack jackets made from camouflage material – right from a Vietnam-era Army-Navy Store. There was an old man walking by, having a decent conversation with himself about ‘his dawg.” Only, he didn’t have a dog with him, nor did he look like he lost one, either.
Opening the door to the Chamber, the smell of must and mildew permeated the air. Two women greeted me, happy to see someone who didn’t look like a local (I was wearing my Weird NJ sweatshirt). The whole Chamber was a museum to the by-gone era of Excelsior Springs, beginning with the late 1800s when a local stumbled across the healing iron manganese springs right up to the 1970s, when the town and its source of income was virtually abandoned by tourism.
Glass-enclosed exhibits lined the walls, including an exhibit of the first bottling plant for the waters. Samples of bottles used for Soterian Ginger Ale were lined up against the wall. This beverage, made from local waters, won first place at the World’s Columbia Exhibition in Chicago in 1893. However, the formula, produced by the Soterian brothers, went to the grave with their deaths, and the once-popular drink was never produced again. A subsequent Pepsi plant, using local waters, came and went. The ladies told me, in unison, that everyone swore by the iron manganese waters which went into their local Pepsi, and no other Pepsi tasted like it. Iron manganese? Isn’t iron in water the reason that people have gone bonkers? Don’t local townships spend fortunes replacing iron pipes? Well, that explains the man on the sidewalk discussing his dog to an imaginary companion! There were pictures of movie stars who had vacationed in town (Brenda Joyce, from the silent screen, was born in Excelsior Springs), and of course, Harry Truman, who learned of his presidential victory while staying at The Elms Hotel, on the other side of town. The James Boys – Frank and Jesse – knocked off the Clay County Bank many times before losing their lives in a shootout "up the road a piece." Working artifacts from the early 20th century were displayed, including a Helene Curtis curling machine, which, I was told, still worked. Each curler was attached, by electric wire, to what looked like a mini-electric transformer you see near railroad tracks.
I asked about the abandoned hotels. The ladies showed me old postcards of these once beautiful treasures, with rooftop dancing and gardens, marble interiors and no lack of patrons on any night of the year. They were abandoned in the late 1960s or early 1970s (neither lady could remember the exact date.) Excelsior Springs started going downhill in 1961 or thereabouts, when the U.S. Government’s Food and Drug Administration decreed that there was no proof that the waters had any medicinal value whatsoever. The people slowly stopped coming until only a trickle came and left, and most of the water sources were capped. Both of the now-abandoned hotel interiors were filled with asbestos, and, after unpaid taxes allowed the town to foreclose on the property, there was no money to tear them down safely. So there they stand – along with a lot of other abandoned buildings in town.
The V.A. Hospital, once bustling with doctors, nurses and patients, was converted into the Job Corps office 30 years ago. The town has been trying to reinvent itself, but an arsonist or two have claimed many of the buildings, and their shells stand as monuments to what could have been, had one simple government decree been ignored. Further, the local river, a tributary from the Missouri River, has flooded more times than necessary, with 1993 seeing floodwaters cover most first floor dwellings in downtown and the ‘historic district.’ I bought a guidebook from the 1930s (reprinted in 1980 on the same paper stock) which glorified the heyday of Excelsior Springs, but mentioned that floods and arson had been the town’s true downfall once the springs were ignored.
- The ladies told me to go up the block to City Hall. "What’s in City Hall?" I asked. That’s The Hall of Waters. Oh, yes, and the local Spa. Following their lead, I went around the corner and found The Hall of Waters. Inside, there were signs for the municipal court, the town clerk and a host of other city offices. The art deco lobby led to an art deco bar, manned by two women serving drinks – drinks of water from Excelsior Springs and elsewhere around the globe. The sign on the bar read, "Soda Iron Manganese and Calcium Waters…Hot and Cold Saline Mineral Waters." These ladies poured samples of all these waters, and sold bottled waters, from Russia, from France and from Missouri. I tasted the calcium water as well as the iron manganese water. Well, one sip or two won’t make me crazy…
I asked about the spa and one woman said, "Let me take you there," and she led me through a steamy hall, past the town records department. "Here’s our bubble tub," she said as she proudly pointed out one of those old cast iron tubs with bubbling waters made from some mechanism which resembled what a Foley artist would use in special effects for a movie set. There was a shelf next to the old tub where a variety of yellow rubber duckies sat. The lady said, "You can pick your own ducky to have in the water." Awesome, truly awesome.
The next booth was the steam bath, out of an old movie set, where only a head could poke through an enclosed steam chamber. There were two types – the one where you could sit down, with two doors that closed in front of you, and the other which looked more like an iron lung than a steam bath. The next area was the massage parlor, where you could also have your toes manicured and your butt washed in a 1930s-style “sitz” bath. The shower was something from scary movies, with spouts washing all sides and pores. I was handed a price list. A la Carte services include a body shampoo for $40 and a Happy Hands & Feet treatment for $70. Cellulite treatment – a much more formidable task – was $100. Body wraps were $75. "Excelsior Spa Gift Certificates Make Great Gifts (& easy, too!)" In this bizarro world, the town hall hawked beauty treatments instead of having the local cops give speeding tickets – a unique way to build municipal coffers.
The lady then took me to a lower level, where there was an old huge abandoned swimming pool. She pointed to the ceiling. "See there? That’s where the river came in during the flood of 1993. The pool’s been closed since. We have no money to restore." Then, seeing that I was totally amazed that such a place could be abandoned, she took me to the bowels of The Hall of Waters, past filing cabinets of municipal records. "Here’s where we built a special private pool for FDR. He gave us the money in the 1930s and 1940s to build The Hall of Waters, and we built this for him." There, abandoned for many years, behind musty closed doors, was an exact miniature replica of the big pool, filled with years of dust.
On my way out of town, I stopped at the only living, breathing, operating hotel – The Elms Hotel. Even with refurbishment and a modicum of activity, the pictures in the lobby were still reminiscent of The Shining. I asked the lady behind the desk about the abandoned hotels just up the road and she said, "Oh, those burned down five times each." Back in my car, I traveled past more people muttering to themselves and groups of kids in oversized Army jackets, like my dad had from the war.
On the way out of town, I began muttering to myself. Aha, iron manganese at work with its medicinal powers. "I’ve got to come back here. Excelsior Springs, Missouri is absolutely WEIRD." But then, I hear there are some pretty awesome springs in French Lick, Indiana and in the desert-parched Truth or Consequences, New Mexico!
–Adriana Delia Collins
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