Editing Red Boiling Springs, Tennessee (section)

===Tourist attraction===

In 1873, a stagecoach line was established between Red Boiling Springs and [[Gallatin, Tennessee|Gallatin]], where there was a railroad stop. This likely led to renewed commercial interest in the springs, and by 1876, a general store owner named James Bennett had purchased the springs tract and had built a hotel. Bennett's hotel consisted of a row of log cabins flanking a central frame dining hall.  In the late 1870s, Nashville newspapers first started mentioning Bennett's hotel and its guests' activities, as it was vogue during the [[Gilded Age]] for newspapers to report on daily happenings at upper class and upper-middle class resorts.<ref>Denning, thesis, p. 8-9.</ref>

[[File:Cloyd-hotel-thomas-house-tn1.jpg|left|thumb|210px|The Thomas House, formerly the Cloyd Hotel]]

The 1880s saw a boom in the development of mineral springs resorts as "summer getaways," due in part to the publicity received by places such as [[Saratoga Springs, New York|Saratoga Springs]] in New York.  During this decade, New York businessman James F. O. Shaugnesy purchased the Red Boiling Springs tract and began development of the area as a resort.<ref>[http://www.genealogyinc.com/tennessee/macon-county/ Tennessee Historical Society]</ref>  In 1889, the town first made the Nashville newspapers' front pages when former Tennessee Governor [[John C. Brown]] died of a hemorrhage at one of the hotels. The papers emphasized that due to the isolation of the town and a lack of a telephone or telegraph, there was no way to get help.<ref name=NPS/>  During the following decade, a railroad line was extended to [[Hartsville, Tennessee|Hartsville]], and the railroad established a stagecoach line to Red Boiling Springs. With the continued rise in the number of visitors, two local general store owners&mdash; Zack and Clay Cloyd&mdash; opened the Cloyd Hotel during this period.<ref>Denning, thesis, pp. 11-13.</ref>

In 1905, several investors formed the Red Boiling Springs Water and Realty Company, and the following year purchased the original springs tract from Shaughnesy.  By 1916, the company had replaced Shaughnesy's hotel with a lavish 64-room structure named "The Palace."  During this same period, road improvements allowed the stagecoach lines to be replaced with automobile taxis, reducing the travel time from the railroad to just three hours.<ref name="Denning, thesis, pp. 17-19">Denning, thesis, pp. 17-19.</ref>  In 1918, there were four hotels in town&mdash; the Palace, the Cloyd, the [[Donoho Hotel|Donoho]], and the Central Hotel; a decade later, that number doubled and soon after, over a dozen hotels and at least that many boarding houses had been erected to take advantage of tourism. The hotels all followed a similar design plan&mdash; two stories with elegant verandas spanning the facade and interiors containing large dining halls and 50 to 60 rooms (some later doubled or tripled their roomspace with annexes).<ref name="Denning, thesis, pp. 17-19"/>

While most [[mineral water]] resorts fell out of favor as medical science began to question the healing properties of mineral springs, Red Boiling Springs persisted, reaching its peak in the 1920s and 1930s.<ref>Denning, thesis, pp. 22-33.</ref>  The resort was visited by many famous personages in the first half of the 20th century. The hotel registers included the names of judges, lawyers, heads of business and industry, famous musicians and singers, and politicians, among them [[Joseph W. Byrns Sr.|Jo Byrns]]; [[Al Gore, Sr.]]; [[Nathan Bachman]];<ref>Denning, thesis, p. 37.</ref> [[United States Secretary of State|Secretary of State]] [[Cordell Hull]], who sent a beautiful French tapestry that hung in the main lobby of the Donoho Hotel; and most notably [[President of the United States|President]] [[Woodrow Wilson]]. Although the [[Great Depression]] destroyed many Americans' disposable incomes and hence budget for travel, Red Boiling Springs still had large numbers of visitors. The Summer of 1936 brought over 14,000 people to the little hamlet of approximately 800.<ref>"Good Times - Vacationing at Red Boiling Springs", Jeanette Keith in '''Rural Life and Culture in the Upper Cumberland''', The University Press of Kentucky, 2004</ref>