Hot Wells is the site of a cultural historical park in San Antonio, Texas. The park complements Texas' only World Heritage Site—the nearby San Antonio Missions National Historical Park—and the Mission Reach of the San Antonio River Walk. The park is located on the east side of the San Antonio River, directly across South Presa Street from the San Antonio State Hospital, along the tracks of the Southern Pacific Railway and within sight of Mission San José across the river. Prior to the arrival of the Spanish, the land was originally inhabited by Coahuiltecan peoples.
History
Artesian Well at an Asylum
An artesian well was discovered on land then owned by the Southwestern Lunatic Asylum (also known as the Southeastern Insane Asylum, now known as the San Antonio State Hospital) in 1892—the same year the hospital opened. Intended to provide water for the asylum, the well was dug 1750 feet deep and yielded 180,000 gallons of water per day. But the water had a temperature of 103-104 degrees Fahrenheit and smelled strongly of sulphur. It was found unfit for daily use by the facility so the sulphur water was leased to Charles Scheuermeyer who became a pioneer in the field of water resources development and the earliest to emphasize the medicinal properties of the local sulphur water. As analyzed by G.H. Wooton, a chemist at the State University in Austin, the mineral waters aided in the relief of blood poisoning, kidney, liver and skin diseases and rheumatism. Scheuermeyer placed a full-page ad in San Antonio's 1892-93 city directory for his Natural Hot Sulphur Natatorium at the Southwestern Park.
Scheuermeyer to Shacklett
In 1893, McClellan Shacklett's bid to lease the water exceeded Scheuermeyer's; Shacklett was to build a first-class bathhouse and a sanatarium or hotel housing 200 guests with the Arkansas Hot Springs resort as his model. In June 1893, Shacklett bought a 10-acre riverside pecan grove about 400 yards from the hot sulphur which he landscaped with a carriage drive to his resort known as Natural Hot Sulphur Wells or, simply, Hot Sulpher Baths. The bathhouse's first floor entrance led to an office with carpeted parlors on each side—one for ladies and one for gentlemen; behind the parlors was a large pool filled with hot sulphur water from 2000 feet below. Dressing rooms, private reclining rooms and solo baths were available; a pavilion provided a restaurant. Bathing and drinking the sulphur water in the summer of 1894 purportedly promoted relief from "diseases of the liver, kidneys, stomach and bowels" and was "a certain cure for syphilitic and mercurial diseases peculiar to females, also rheumatism, whether it is inflammatory, sciatica, rheumatic gout or paralysis. For ulceration of the stomach, dyspepsia, indigestion, chronic diarrhea, malaria, biliousness, asthma, catarrh, sore or weak eyes, granulation and all inflammation of the eyelids, weak back, piles, tapeworms...will positively cure scrofula, or King's evil, all eruptions and skin diseases, such as eczema, erysipilas, blotches, boils, carbuncles, tetter, scaldhead, ringworm, herpes, chilbains, falling out of hair, itch, nettlerash, and old chronic sores that have resisted treatment." Hot Sulphur Wells' first ball was held on February 28, 1894; visitors swam as a string band played, dinner and dancing followed. With warmer weather crowds came to the Hot Sulphur Wells; electric streetcars ran every twenty minutes into the central city. By summer's end, the sulphur water flowed 1,200,000 gallons a day. The site was a veritable zoo: the notorious Judge Roy Bean freight shipped a mountain lion and a black bear from Langtry, Texas to the Wells, adding to Shacklett's other exotic animal acquisitions.
The First Fire
On December 23, 1894, an early morning fire flashed through the Shacklett's bathhouse; he was asleep not far from the bathhouse when a neighbor woke him to engulfing flames and collapsing wings. Shacklett saved five guests from the smoke and rescued a sixth from the burning roof over the pool. The entire building was gone within an hour.
Nearly a year later, investors from the North had secured a 25 year lease from the asylum, and in January 1900 two land tracts were bought by the Texas Hot Sulphur Water Sanitarium Company fully ousting Shacklett from the site. The Company's president was Otto Koehler who in two years would also lead the San Antonio Brewing Association (later known as Pearl Brewery) and in coming years would be regarded as the richest man in the southern part of the U.S. only to be murdered in 1914.