Bedford Springs Hotel

One word brought chaos to Bedford and it has never been the same.

In 1836, Noah Parker and his wife discovered a spring on their Trimble County Farm. Drinking water from this spring, they discovered a difference in the smell and taste. Testing proved this water had medicinal properties and as word of this spread, people came to sample it. As the years past and more people came the Parkers started building cottages to house the visitors and in 1841, they built a hotel. The Bedford Springs Hotel would accommodate over 100 people. Even at that, they were still short of rooms and negotiated a contract with neighboring farms. One of these was known as the Coleman House. There were also cottages for those who brought the family.

On an August night in 1851, as the ladies, dressed in their finest and the gentlemen in their cummerbunds and tails, danced in the grand ballroom the One Word resounded throughout the night— “CHOLERA.”

Many vacationers were here from the south to get away from yellow fever and many other maladies that were had in the swampy areas of the south. And hearing this one work, people scattered and by morning light, only those too sick to leave were found on the grounds. Never again were there visitors to Bedford Springs. Never again did the summers have children playing on the knolls and in the valleys of the farm Never again did couples meet and wander through the woods and down the paths to the spring and have a summer romance that sometimes continued to the altar.

The farm went back to being a farm and the cottages were used as pigpens and storage until they rotted. Through the years, the tenant farmer lived in part of the hotel while the other part was used for a stripping room and storage. It was never kept up and soon parts were crumbling. In 1967 it was destroyed by fire. The spring was not protected from nature’s elements and soon rocks and debris covered it until it is now lost to those who have searched to discover it.

All that is left is what was recorded in the few journals of a time that once was.

From a Facebook post by Hilda Parrish