Mineral Springs Hotel 2009

The Mineral Springs Hotel was built in 1914, but like so many other buildings in history, it was not the original structure on the site where it sits. The original building was a meat packing plant, which was built in the 1880s. The owners, August and Herman Luer, began drilling where the hotel now sits because they wanted to add an ice making and cold storage facility to their meat packing company. However, during the drilling, a natural spring was discovered. The spring had a strong odor of sulfur which was declared to be "medicinal" in nature. The brothers were persuaded to build a health spa instead of a cold storage facility. 

Construction on the building begin in 1913 with a water bottling plant that was five stories below the street.  The rest of the structure was built right on top of the plant.  The hotel opened its doors in June 1914 with great success. Not only were people pouring in from all over to have a go in the restorative waters of one of the hotel's two pools, but the water bottling plant was churning out product like crazy. 

August Luer sold the hotel in 1926, but it continued to thrive well in the 1960s. However, during the 1960s, the popularity of "healing waters of mineral springs" began to decline and the building began to deteriorate. The hotel began taking in transients on a weekly and monthly basis. In 1971, the building closed its doors for good and was actually condemned because of the state of decay. 

In 1978, it was bought and renovated into an antique mall and thrived for a bit, but then fell into decline once again. Several years after that, the building was once again being used for an antique mall and is operational as such today. There are also some apartments and office spaces within the building. 

This building has several stories of hauntings. It's sometimes hard to decipher legend from truth in these stories. However, consider the fact that during its heyday, over 3000 people a year (which is a lot for the turn of the 20th century) would flock to the hotel for healing restoratives. The building also housed transients and is even today used as an apartment building. People live, people die, in all sorts of places and situations. Could it be that some of those spirits linger in a place that thought "healing" or the last place they ever lay their heads?