French Lick, Indiana, has medicinal waters, luxury hotels and a presidential past

French Lick, INDIANA — Some 100 ago, this little town, nestled in the hilly forests of southern Indiana, was well-known to most people with means. Folks would flock here by train to drink its medicinal waters, gamble illicitly at its supper clubs, and revel in fine food and lodging. The wildly-embraced, new beverage “tomato juice” was created in French Lick in 1917 and President Franklin D. Roosevelt announced his candidacy here in 1932.

Today, the 3,200-acre French Lick Resort features two luxury hotels with 750 plus combined rooms, three golf courses, two spas, three swimming pools, a 24/7 nonsmoking casino, shops, stables and more. The frilly fun is a 54-mile drive from the Louisville, Kentucky, airport.

Founded in 1857, the town of French Lick originally was a French trading post built near a spring and salt lick, where hunted bison once lapped up lithium-laced waters that entrepreneurs bottled before the chemical element was deemed a controlled substance.

Visitors can learn all this and more at the French Lick West Baden Museum, where budding curator Kenton Allbright, 19, passionately espouses on the hometown he shares with basketball great Larry Bird. Bird’s modest childhood home, with its basketball goal out front, can be seen near the stately, still-standing limestone Monon Railroad depot from which scenic 25-mile train rides regularly depart.

Among its many artifacts, the museum showcases an old steam train whistle and other Monon paraphernalia. A main attraction is a scale model of the Hagenbeck-Wallace Circus, whose employees once wintered in French Lick.

The West Baden Springs Hotel — boasting opulent gold overlays, stained glass windows and marble tile — is a historical gem in itself. Built in the late 1880s, the hotel burned in 1901 and, miraculously, was rebuilt in a year’s time with a steel dome; the very same that today caps a magnificent rotunda encircled by balconied rooms. In past lives, the hotel served as a WWI Army hospital, Jesuit seminary and private university/technical school for which hotel historian Jeff Lane’s brother played baseball. Go, Blue Devils!

Other sites in southern Indiana well worth visiting include:

• Lincoln Boyhood National Memorial in Lincoln City: The character and moral traits of assassinated president/Kentucky native Abraham Lincoln were formed in southern Indiana, where he grew from ages 7 to 21 (1816-‘30). This memorial features five exterior, statue panels that showcase Lincoln’s life from log cabin to the White House and a contemplative walk, designed by Boston landscape artist Frederick Olmsted, to the family cemetery, where Lincoln’s mother, whom he lost at age 9, is buried. Visitors can walk the very paths Lincoln walked to the family farm where his dad crafted famous corner cabinets, and raised crops and livestock. Lincoln and his subsequent step-siblings slept in the loft of a tiny cabin that, based on his own accounts, is replicated there.

• Marengo Cave in Morengo: Discovered by candlelight in 1883 by a sister and brother, 15 and 11, this cave features 325-million-year-old limestone and awesome stalagmites rising from the floor and stalactites hanging from the ceiling. Today, overnight and side trips are available.

• The Grissom Memorial in Mitchell: The memorial honors Gus Grissom, one of the seven Mercury astronauts and America’s second man in space (‘61), and notably features Grissom’s space suit and the Gemini 3 space capsule. Grissom, who perished in a ’67 test launch, was the fist astronaut to control and change the path of a spacecraft while in orbit.

• The Pioneer Village in Mitchell: The site features 20 historic buildings, including an original schoolhouse and grist mill. Pioneer entrepreneurs took advantage of a constant water source to power gristmill, wool and saw mills, and a distillery. The village was founded in 1816: which is remembered as “the year with no summer;” it snowed every month, including a blizzard in July.

• The Falls in Clarksville on the banks of the Ohio River: Fossils are hidden in the 390-million-year-old rock beds and evident and explore-able when the river is low, which is typically late summer through fall. Park rangers use a “magic” spray bottle of water to highlight “every lump and bump” of horn, honeycomb, wasp, pipe and organ coral, sponges and more.

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Once a trading post, French Lick, Indiana, now features resorts, spas