Its Springs Eternal Spa sits at one edge of the resort, where people have flocked to the mineral springs since the United States was 20 years old and a local physician named John Anderson sensed that the Indians who drank and bathed in the waters were onto something.
Anderson bought the land where Bedford Springs sits and began erecting bathhouses and eventually a hotel and restaurant - a resort long before we had the notion of resorts and a spot for summer vacations long before vacations were common.
Over the decades - actually, centuries - the place became a full-service Bedford Springs resort. As accommodations grew, it became more regal, with long outside walkways and porches, rocking chairs, and a sweeping facade of white columns; with its early-American golf course (some of the holes from 1895 are part of the modern course); and with an early indoor pool (restored to its 1905 beauty and now heated).
And with its seven springs - now eight. A new gusher was discovered when Bedford Springs was being restored a few years ago.
After its long haul as one of America's first official places to relax, after visits by 10 presidents and the likes of Henry Ford and John Wanamaker, the resort fell into disrepair. Then, disaster struck. A flash flood ravaged the site, and the resort closed in 1986. Water, which had made Bedford Springs an attraction, had overwhelmed it.
But not mortally. After fits and starts from various entrepreneurs, a group called Bedford Resort Partners - including the U.S. ambassador to Costa Rica, Mark Langdale - bought the National Historic Landmark from Bedford County in 1998. Their painstaking $120 million restoration was successful, and Bedford Springs reopened in 2007 and has become popular once again, as a part of the Omni Hotel chain.
