Blue Ridge Country - January/February 2019 - 24

M O U N TA I N C U R I O S
ing health through drinking or soaking in
the town's salt sulfur waters. But by 1940,
Webster Springs' era as a spa town was
ending. The Lovers Lane boardwalk began
to sag and was torn down.
"I'd been gone 50 years when I returned
to Webster Springs and started buying
parcels of land along the river where the
original boardwalk was located," Gillespie
says. "I bought the first and had to wait
two years to buy another and ended up
getting a 10-year lease on the last parcel.
Then I started clearing brush from the riverbank so I could see the river."
Gillespie started work on the boardwalk
in September 2017 as a solo project before

discovering he was in over his head.
"The first two sections of boardwalk
I built I had to pull out and start over
again," he says.
Since then, he's hired a crew of five to
build and secure the four-foot wide boardwalk to the steep slope. At some particularly steep sections with drop-offs of 15
feet or more, the work crew used climbing
harnesses while building foundation piers
and placing support posts. Unlike the two
previous versions of the boardwalk, Gillespie equipped his with handrails, which
had to be specially shaped to adjust for
curves and elevation changes.
The walkway includes three small rain

Capon Springs Water Lives On

FROM
PRICEY
TO FREE

The history of the West Virginia resort's water goes back more than 150 years, with
endorsements from people ranging from Olympians to congressmen.
Story and photos by JOE TENNIS

n the 1920s, Louis Austin reached an
agreement to sell Capon Springs Mineral Water in Philadelphia. This was
at a time when Hampshire County, West
Virginia's Capon Springs and Baths were
virtually abandoned, but whose owners
nonetheless offered contracts for individuals such as Austin to collect its waters.
Austin would go on to buy the spring
that was the source of that water in 1932
at a real estate auction. And he dearly
wanted that water-a liquid so pure and
invigorating that it was favored by both
the U.S. Congress and the U.S. Olympics
teams in the 1920s. But, Austin was not
necessarily interested in what came with
it-the old resort property.
Still, he let his friends stay at Capon
Springs. His wife, Virginia, became a popular hostess. And friends who stayed told
more friends, until a clientele began building ever bigger. Church groups came out.
So did families on reunions.

BLUERIDGECOUNTRY.COM

Even so, Austin kept
trying to unload this
place-until finally realizing running a resort was
more easy-flowing than
trying to sell spring water. This retreat actually
kept itself afloat while the
water industry faced everstifling rules and regulations.
Today, it may be sheer fate that Capon
Springs still thrives while so many other
spring resorts of the mid-1800s have since
faded back into the wilderness.
The original resort was established in
1851 as part of the Commonwealth of Virginia.
"But it was way overbuilt and never
became much-they just didn't have
enough people come," says Jonathan Bellingham, one of Austin's grandsons and
now the marketing and recreation man-

Doctors prescribed
Capon Springs
Water for better
health in the late
1800s and early
1900s.

ager at Capon Springs and Farms.
West Virginia acquired Capon Springs
when Hampshire County became part of
the Mountain State in 1863. Still, it struggled-until the 1870s when it became
easier to reach, says Bellingham, and overflowed with visitors "when a lot of people
were looking for these mountain resorts."
The property passed into private
hands a few years later. But its "Mountain
House" burned to the ground in 1911,
and its lodging business dried up.

http://www.BLUERIDGECOUNTRY.COM

Blue Ridge Country - January/February 2019

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Blue Ridge Country - January/February 2019