Pine Lodge Club House
Elkhart, Anderson County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Built by business leaders who in 1880s patronized Mineral Wells Hotel at spa in Elkhart, a nearby resort. After wells failed, group moved here, organized lodge, built (1907) this club house with wide fireplace, large rooms, long verandas. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1967
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
In the 1880s business leaders came to Elkhart to take the waters at a nearby mineral-springs resort, part of the era's craze for health spas built around supposedly curative wells. When the wells failed, the group organized a lodge and in 1907 built this clubhouse with its wide fireplace, large rooms, and long verandas. It survives as a relic of a genteel age of leisure.
Why it matters
Mineral-springs resorts and their social clubs mark a distinctive chapter of Gilded Age recreation, when small Texas towns chased fortune as health destinations.
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