Chapter Sixteen
Hot Water Well
The year 1921 was one of the conspicuous periods in the history of Sebring. Epic events became common place that year. The high spot that everyone felt would be the one great and momentous incident of the year was the division of Old DeSoto County and the creation of Highlands County on July 4th.
The Board of Trade was reorganized and Frank Sebring, as its new president and a new Board of Governors breathed new life into the organization. Things began to happen. Tuscawilla Park was established and the pavilion in it was built with funds raised by contributions. The Board of Trade issued the most comprehensive advertising brochure ever circulated by Sebring either before or since that date. Mr. H. O. Sebring completed the first paved road around Lake Jackson. This opened a new area of lake-front lots which were soon all sold.
For a period of two or three months, one event caused more excitement and raised greater expectations of progress than any other activity of the year. A bubbling spring of hot water was discovered near Park Street between Lime and Maple Streets. Just off the pavement, opposite the ice manufacturing plant, when a shallow well was being put down, the hot water was discovered.
The effect of the discovery was electrifying!
From the Sebring White Way, September 23, 1921
PREPARING PUBLICITY FOR HOT WATER WELL
Reliability of “Old Faithful” Has Been Established. Literature will Be Sent Out and the World Made Familiar With the Fact That Sebring Is the Only Town in Florida Having a Genuine Hot Water Well. Plans for Sanitarium Being Formulated.
Well the time is at hand for making known to the world that Sebring is the only town in Florida that has a genuine hot water well. The wells at the ice plant, which have been named “Old Faithful” have been proven beyond a doubt that we have a treasure. The owners are getting ready to put on a publicity campaign, and the plans for a sanitarium are being worked out and there is nothing now to do but boost the proposition to a finish, and that is getting into shape.
It will be remembered that a well was bored in the Circle last week in the hope that the hot water might be found, but the stream that was obtained turned out to be a cold stream, but the geologist claims that there is a bubbling spring that supplies the water for the two wells at the ice plant, and that while the stream found on the Circle evidently flows from the spring the water is cooled off soon after leaving the flow that supplies the wells. The boring of the well on the Circle has demonstrated that hot water wells are not common even around Sebring, for be it remembered that another well has been sunk at the plant and that well is also cold water, so that goes to prove that Sebring really has “Old Faithful” the genuine article, and that hot water wells cannot be found everywhere.
The men who are going to promote the scheme of publicity are preparing to start a “Tent City” in close proximity to the well, where a “Cash and Carry Cafe” will be located. A building for the sanitarium will be erected and you can put it down that the coming winter is going to see thousands coming to Sebring for baths, and they will get them right off the reel.
An analysis of the water will be made, and the medicinal qualities thoroughly exploited. As soon as that is accomplished there will be a move made to give the publicity that such a thing deserves given to a great find. We are making no boasts nor prophecy, but we are of the opinion that there is going to be something great come out of the discovery of this hot water, and there is no reason why another Hot Springs or a Baden should not be established right here in Sebring, and it is a safe bet that in Winter, people would much rather come to the greatest climate on earth to get their hot baths than to go into a country where frost and snow and cold are almost unbearable.
Forgotten Failures
Not all of the plans and projects pursued by groups and individuals in Sebring, over the years, have been successful. While the plans that bore fruit are easily remembered, those which did not reach maturity pass quickly from memory. Although there are more of these failures than we may like to recall, some of them are worthy of mention. Every one of them had merit and the city would have been vastly improved, had they succeeded.
The story of the “hot water well” has been told and retold. The concise version as narrated by Mrs. Alberta Jones in “the Fifty Years of Sebring,” is well told and historically correct so it merits repeating -
“In the late summer (1921) a new well was driven near the ice plant. To the amazement and delight of the workers the new well had hot water!
The town that had so long boasted about its remarkable health water was thrilled with the thought that natural hot water was available. Overnight the whole town was bustling with plans to build a health resort to rival the famed hot springs in the Ozarks.
“In early September a geologist reported to the town council that he had traced the hot water stream from the well at the ice plant to the Circle. A committee was appointed to investigate the cost of sinking a well to tap this remarkable stream.
“A few days later the council ‘authorized the Sebring Real Estate Company to drive a well on or near the Circle tapping the hot water stream’.
“Older residents remember that this was a time of great excitement. Other business was virtually at a standstill while the drilling operations were underway. Finally the new well yielded water, but it was cold water! Then the embarrassing facts came to light! The hot water at the original site was not coming from a well, but rather was the surface waste draining from the ice plant where great quantities of water were used to cool the big machinery.”
After weeks of ambitious and big plans, the discovery of the source of the hot water was infinitely more disappointing. It was found that the waste water which drew its temperature from the ice-making process, was being discharged at a point where it ran under the street paving and bubbled to the surface on the opposite side. The dreams of hot water medicinal baths died a sudden death.
The “hot water well” was but an incident in the much larger dream which covered a span of more than a decade. Their pride in the qualities of their water and the congenial climate encouraged the feeling that Sebring was a logical and ideal location for a “health center” and a big sanitarium.
At that period of the city’s growth, the vast majority of the residents were newly arrived from the north with fresh memories of the rigorous winters, so the climate had a great influence on their dream. And the natural purity and good taste flavor of the water was in sharp contrast to the sulphurous flavor of the inland towns’ water supplies and the brackish qualities of the waters of coastal towns. Since that time, of course, other communities have improved their water systems and the Board of Health has made chlorination of Sebring’s supply mandatory so present-day comparisons are not so sharply defined.
Many roseate plans for the “health center” were discussed which climaxed in negotiations with a Dr. Kellogg who had developed a similar center and sanitarium in another state. The dream did not end in a rude awakening but rather faded so gradually that nobody knew it had ended.
(This article is reprinted from Bulletin Number Two.
Sebring Historical Society, July 1969. Pages 45-47. And
Bulletin Number Thirty Four, October 1981. Pages 989-990.
Variations are printed in other society publications)