Site of Park Hotel

The Keeley Institute that took over the hotel in 1891 sold a famous and disputed cure. Dr. Leslie Keeley announced his treatment for alcoholism in 1879 at Dwight, Illinois, under the slogan "Drunkenness is a disease and I can cure it." Patients received injections of what was called bichloride of gold, and those who finished were honored as "graduates." The cure was wildly popular in the 1890s, with more than 200 branches in the United States and Europe, but the mainstream medical profession criticized it sharply.

What the plaque says

Site of Park Hotel The year 1882 ushered in an era of prosperity for Lampasas, as the city became the western terminus for the Gulf, Colorado & Santa Fe line out of Galveston. The city became a trading point for settlers who came for access to the rail line. Known for the curative powers of its local spring water, Lampasas also became a destination for those seeking health and relaxation. A group of businessmen from the Houston and Galveston area built the Grant Park Hotel (Park Hotel), to capitalize on the city's popularity. The Park Hotel opened in 1883. The two-story frame structure stretched more than 300 feet and overlooked lawns that sloped to Sulphur Creek. The resort offered 200 guest rooms and cabins for families as well as single men, who were housed on Bachelor's Row. Guests found entertainment in the dining room, parlors, ballrooms and an outdoor bandstand, and used bathing facilities to enjoy the mineral springs. Occupants participated in shooting contests, horseracing, boating and other pursuits; a mule-drawn trolley carried them back and forth between the hotel and the railroad depot. The Park Hotel also became the site for organization meetings, including the first convention of the Texas Bankers Association, founded in 1885 by Frank Malone, a Lampasas banker. The Hotel's glory days were short lived. By the 1890s, when the rail line had been extended farther west and medical advances surpassed the need for curative waters, the city faced a recession. In 1891, the hotel became part of the Keely Institute. It changed hands twice more before burning to the ground in February 1895. Today, only the stone portions of the bathhouses remain at the site, reminders of a glamorous period in Lampasas history. (2005)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Hancock Springs Park — 0.3 mi
  Lampasas's city park on Sulphur Creek, with a spring-fed swimming pool that holds about 69 degrees all year, the walls of the old bathhouse and a golf course.
• Colorado Bend State Park — 18 mi
  Old ranch country on the Colorado above Lake Buchanan, where a spring-fed creek drops 70 feet over fern-covered travertine at Gorman Falls.
• Inks Lake State Park — 25 mi
  A state park on a constant-level lake of the Colorado, between Buchanan and Inks dams, with pink granite and gneiss at the water and CCC work along Park Road 4.
• Inks Dam National Fish Hatchery — 26 mi
  A free federal hatchery below Inks Dam on the Colorado, with thirty production ponds that draw birds and a look at how fish are raised from egg to harvest.

More markers nearby

• Hancock Springs — 0.3 mi
• The 1957 Flood — 0.4 mi
• First Baptist Church of Lampasas — 0.5 mi
• Hancock Springs Bathhouse — 0.5 mi