Hanna Springs
Lampasas, Lampasas County, Texas
Marker Inscription
"Hopping John" Burleson received a headright Grant for 1280 acres of land, including this site, in 1838. He first viewed the bubbling springs in 1847. "Hopping John" transferred the property to his cousin, John Burleson, in 1854. Later that year, John Burleson transferred the deed to his two daughters. One daughter, Elizabeth Scott, and her husband George erected a hotel near the springs, which became known as Scott's White Sulphur Springs. The Scotts laid out the town of Lampasas in the summer of 1855. The springs became a popular recreation site, touted for the healing properties of the many minerals contained in the water. In 1863 the Scotts sold their property to William H. Storm and Thomas J. Moore; Storm sold the springs property to John L. Hanna and his sister Isabella Hanna in 1867. John Hanna's management heightened the popularity of the springs, and the hotel and springs became known as Hanna Springs. Health seekers flocked to Hanna's resort for years. When John Hanna died in Illinois in 1878, his property was sold by his heirs. The Hanna Pavilion, later called Hanna Opera House, was built soon after John Hanna's death. It wa large enough to host the State Democratic Convention in 1892. Will Campbell bought the property in 1904. Mrs. Campbell had the pavilion torn down and erected a smaller bath house in 1907. The property was known as Crystal Springs in the 1920s, after which its popularity waned. By the 1940s the public was no longer using the springs and the park became overgrown with brush. The property was donated to the city for public use in 1994. (1999)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
In the Texas Hill Country, the bubbling mineral springs first glimpsed by "Hopping John" Burleson in 1847 became the seed of the town of Lampasas, laid out in 1855 around a hotel at Scott's White Sulphur Springs. Under later owner John L. Hanna the resort took his name and drew health-seekers who believed the mineral waters could cure their ailments. A grand pavilion-turned-opera-house even hosted the 1892 State Democratic Convention before the fashion for spa towns faded and the grounds fell to brush, until the site was given to the city in 1994.
Why it matters
Hanna Springs captures the Gilded Age craze for mineral-water "health resorts" that founded and fattened towns across the American West.
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Related people
- · John L. Hanna
- · Elizabeth Scott
- · George Scott
Related events
- · Founding of Lampasas (1855)
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Keystone Hotel
Lampasas, TX
Built in 1870 of native rock hauled to the site by oxen, the Keystone Hotel served as a stagecoach inn on the routes crossing early Central Texas, its windows crowned by the keystone arches that gave it its name. Kept by J. L. N. Gracy, it stood amid the ordinary infrastructure of frontier travel — a wagon yard, a bell tower, quarters for employees, and, poignantly, the grave of a boy killed in an Indian raid. It survives as a Recorded Texas Historic Landmark.
Little Hotel
Lampasas, TX
When the nearby Gracy Hotel was finished in 1870, its builders used the leftover stone to raise this smaller companion, the "Little Hotel." It gave J. L. N. Gracy and his bride a private apartment upstairs while offering rooms to travelers below. Its mason, Charles Green, also worked on the larger hotel and on the Coleman County courthouse and jail, leaving his craftsmanship across the region.
Lampasas County
Lampasas, TX
Lampasas County was organized in 1856, formed from Travis and Bell counties as Anglo settlement pushed up the Texas rivers in the years before the Civil War. Its name derives from Lampazos, the Spanish name for the local river, said to refer to the cockle-burs that grew thickly along its banks. First settled around 1850, the county grew steadily and gained its first railroad in 1882, with the town of Lampasas as its seat.
Site of Park Hotel
Lampasas, TX
When the Gulf, Colorado & Santa Fe reached Lampasas in 1882, the town became a rail terminus and a fashionable spa destination famed for its healing sulphur springs. Houston and Galveston businessmen built the Park Hotel, opened in 1883: a 300-foot frame resort with 200 rooms, ballrooms, a bandstand, and a mule-drawn trolley to the depot, host in 1885 to the first Texas Bankers Association convention. Its glory was brief — as the rails pushed west and medicine outgrew mineral cures, the hotel declined and burned in 1895.