It had been about four years since I last visited Sweet Springs, WV, until this past month. The focus of my graduate thesis, Sweet Springs was a luxury resort during the nineteenth that was later converted into a tuberculosis sanitarium and nursing home before its abandonment in the mid 1990s.
Home to one of the earliest recipes for a mint julep, Sweet Springs attracted some of the wealthiest people in America during its heyday between the 1830s and 1860s but there aren’t highway markers to point anyone there now. Its grand hotel, once known as the Great Western, has been erroneously attributed to Thomas Jefferson but it was most certainly designed by someone who practiced architecture under him nonetheless.
For my thesis, I attempted to reimagine what Sweet Springs would have looked like during the antebellum era by documenting the site with 3D scanning and using that information to verify period accounts. It was an ambitious project and while I was able to scan a large percentage of Sweet Springs, it amazes me that I am still discovering more about this place.
This past year, for example, a local man found an old medical book in which the hotel proprietor’s wife had scribbled recipes for things like brandy peaches between remedies and tonics. He has also managed to collect a set of andirons bought at an auction which presumably came out of the basement tavern. And, I love that. I love that there is more to know. Trips there have always been exciting and I certainly look forward to more discoveries when possible again.
If you like this blog post, you might enjoy this previous update!
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