Published September 23, 2012
By Linda Riggs Mayfield
In the late 19th and
early 20th century, one highly specialized hotel in Adams County attracted
hundreds of visitors each year, not only from neighboring counties, but from other
states and even Europe.
Its annual opening for the May-to-October season was a newsworthy event. The
famed destination was the Forest Hotel in the secluded community of Siloam,
located in a little valley in Buckhorn Township, about 30 miles east of Quincy.
(Some handwritten notes spell “Forest” with two Rs, but official documents have
only one. One early article called it the “Forest Home Hotel,” but that name
appeared nowhere else.) The hotel and the community that grew up around it were
focused on one attraction: the many mineral springs in the valley.
Mineral springs were valuable. The painkiller aspirin was not patented until
1899, and the patent for it was held in Germany until after World War I. Until
then, Americans who had aches and pains turned to natural remedies, and the
waters from mineral springs were highly prized and advertised for their
curative effects. Mineral springs supported hotels and resorts in many states.
George “Mohawk” Myers first acquired the tract with the springs on it when the
government released the area as bounty land in 1852, then it was sold several
times. Rev. Reuben K. McCoy, a Presbyterian pastor from Clayton, is credited
with discovering and naming the springs sometime after the Civil War: Siloam
was the name of the pool to which Jesus sent the blind man he healed in John
9:7. In 1881, Quincy Burgesser, a Clayton businessman, owned the land.
Burgesser had the spring waters analyzed and found them to have “more strength
than the water from the famous Eureka Springs,” due to the high magnesia, iron,
and sulfur content.
Seizing the business opportunity, Burgesser began building a resort hotel on
his land in 1882 and organized the Siloam Springs Company in 1883 to support
and operate it. So many reservations were made before it was even completed
that the plan was enlarged, and the resort opened with a 40-room hotel, a
two-story bath house, and spring houses. The beautiful L-shaped hotel had
balconies, a ballroom, and full kitchen facilities. There were tennis courts
and croquet grounds. The three-day grand opening in May, 1887 attracted guests
from as far as Colorado.
The little village of Siloam grew around the hotel — homes, school, post
office, liveries, stores, a 200-foot swimming pool. Local guests arrived by
road and those from farther away came by transportation provided from the
Wabash railroad station at Clayton. An 1895 advertisement in The Siloam Herald,
stated: “All persons desiring to come to Siloam from Baylis on the Wabash route
will find first class livery rigs at cheap rates at Haines and Co’s livery
stable.” Business thrived.
The original owner of the springs, George Myers, lived to be 102, and his
longevity was credited to drinking the spring water. In the 1890s, J. B. House,
a Siloam entrepreneur, sold the water and shipped it by rail all over the
country at $3/barrel, or $2 more if he had to provide the barrel. Hotel guests
could arrange to have the Siloam waters at home.
The Mount Sterling Democrat Message reported on June 18, 1909, that the new
hotel manager, C. S. Johnson, had refurbished the hotel prior to the season
opening, adding “new toilet rooms by (sic) both ladies and gentlemen,” 37 new
rugs, 205 yards of new carpet, and 60 yards of linoleum, as well as new
wallpaper and paint, 16 rocking chairs, and a piano in the parlor. He also
added running water from a system run by a gasoline engine. Outside, he
installed 930 feet of concrete sidewalks and 700 feet of boardwalks, a
1,000-foot lake with an island and a beach, and dressing rooms.
The guest books from the Forest Hotel for
1886-95 and 1909-14 are archived at the Historical Society of Quincy and Adams
County and include signatures of world-famous guests. C. E. Ringling, renowned
circus owner, registered Oct. 23, 1887. P. T. Barnum stayed there July 24,
1888. (The column in which the innkeeper checked whether the guest had arrived
by auto or horse was left blank.) E. I. DuPont registered July 27, 1888,
listing his home as Paris, France.
The number of guests fluctuated greatly over the following years, but Adams,
Pike, and Brown County citizens supported the hotel. Baseball teams stayed
there. Ladies from Quincy hired drivers to take them and their children to
Siloam for day trips and overnight outings. Young people from Beverly, where
their strict Methodist parents had prohibited dancing, came to the ballroom at
the Forest Hotel on Saturday nights. In 1894, the Quincy Glee Club sang there;
in 1888, the Fishhook Band performed.
The hotel was closed from 1912 to 1915, then Johnson resumed managing it, and
July 15, 1924, he purchased it from the Siloam Springs Company. But the
era of springs resorts was ending, and there was no way to revive the business.
A decade later, J. S. Harwood bought the hotel at a tax sale and renovated it
again, but he was only able to keep it open two seasons, then he sold it to the
newly formed Siloam Recreation Club. The club intended to restore it and
develop the area for recreation, and local citizens raised money to match the
state’s contribution toward that goal. The hotel was remodeled in 1937, and the
roads were graveled. But by 1940, the Club had negotiated to turn the entire
Siloam valley into a state recreation area. The state opted not to restore or
maintain the structures.
The last buildings were sold at auction by the state on Nov. 20, 1943, and
dismantled for lumber. Cecil Noftz of Golden bought the hotel for $1,200. A
news article that reported the day’s events speculated that there was enough
wood in the hotel to build five modest houses. Today only the hewn stone foundation of the hotel remains, and most of the remnants of the
town have been gone for almost 70 years.
The beautiful, steep-sided valley that used to be the location of the Forest
Hotel and the town of Siloam is now part of the Siloam Springs State Park.
Visitors who know where to look can find the sidewalks and foundation stones of
the grandest building of them all, and on the west side of the road that forms
a one-mile loop through the valley, there is a modest historical marker that
simply states that the spot was the location of the Forest Hotel.
Linda Riggs Mayfield, EdD, is retired from the associate faculty of
Blessing-Rieman College of Nursing. She is a researcher, writer and an
editorial consultant for academic researchers and authors. Seven generations of
Mayfield’s family have lived in Adams County.
Sources
Baldwin, Fred.
“Memories Fade as State Sells Siloam Springs Hotel,” Unattributed
newspaper clipping, Archives of the Historical Society of Quincy and Adams
County, November, 1943.
Brown County Board of
the Schuyler Brown Historical and Genealogical Society, A History of Brown
County, Illinois, 1880-1970, c.1972.
Genosky, Landry (Ed.).
People’s History of Quincy and Adams County, Illinois: A Sesquicentennial
History. Quincy, IL: Jost & Kiefer, n.d.
Landrum, Carl.
“Hotel’s Hey-day at Siloam Springs,” Quincy Herald-Whig (Quincy, IL).
October 8, 2000.
Mayfield, C. A.
“Notice to All Club Members.” Internal Communication of The Siloam
Recreation Club, Inc., Archives of the Historical Society of Quincy and Adams
County, July 19, 1938.
Mohlenbrock, Robert.
“Siloam Springs State Park: An Old Resort Area Now a Western Illinois
Recreation Center,” [Pamphlet]. Outdoor Illinois (1975).
Siloam Herald, Archives
of the Historical Society of Quincy and Adams County, May 16, 1895.
Siloam Springs
Recreation Club, Souvenir program for dedication of Siloam Springs State Park,
Archives of the Historical Society of Quincy and Adams County, 1956.
Webber, John.
“Siloam Springs Natives Want to Bring Crowds Back,” Quincy
Herald-Whig, November 19, 1989.
