Editing Marlin, Texas (section)

== The mineral water era (1890s–1960s) ==

In 1891, the City of Marlin issued bonds worth $25,000 to drill an [[artesian well]].  Hot mineral water was accidentally discovered and later alleged to have medicinal properties. To harness the potential benefit of these "healing waters", the first bath house was constructed in 1895, with several others to follow. A least two of those early houses had large swimming pools with ornate, covered buildings. Other bath houses were subsequently constructed that included individual bathing areas with marble tubs and cooling rooms with available massages for a full spa treatment. Thousands were soon attracted to Marlin to "take the cure."<ref name=":0" />

While Marlin had a number of small hotels in the 19th century, the construction of the three-story Arlington Hotel in 1895 demonstrated the economic impact and potential of the mineral-water industry.  The hotel and adjacent bathhouse burned in January 1899, but were both replaced with more elaborate structures that opened in 1901.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book|title=Marlin 1851-1976|last=Marlin Bicentennial Heritage Committee|publisher=Marlin Chamber of Commerce|year=1976|location=Waco, Texas|pages=17}}</ref>  The new Arlington Hotel hosted notable community events and statewide conventions. Other than the Hilton and the numerous boarding houses (such as Captain Bourrupt's and the Harris Houses), the town had several other hotels, among them the Fannin, the Majestic, and the Imperial; most were on Coleman Street and within a few blocks of the public hot water fountain and the mineral water wells—on a sort of bath-house row.

In 1929, [[Conrad Hilton]] began construction of a [[Hilton Hotel]] that was opened on May 27, 1930, at a cost of $375,000 and to which Marlin citizens and businesses contributed $50,000.<ref name=":0" />  The nine-floor, 110-room hotel remains the tallest building in Marlin and was built on Coleman Street across from the Marlin Sanitarium Bathhouse, which burned in the early 1990s. The hotel was connected to the bathhouse by a tunnel that has not been filled in, but is inaccessible. Mr. Hilton's first venture into the hotel business that featured several hotels in Cisco, Mineral Wells, El Paso, and Marlin were not successful, and Mr. Hilton sold those hotels in the 1930s. The Marlin Hilton was bought by the Moody’s of Galveston and later known as the Falls Hotel, then bought by the Smithwicks. It has been closed since the late 1960s as a hotel, but parts of the first floor have held small businesses-beauty shops, an optometrist's office, an insurance agency, and restaurants. One such restaurant, the Cactus, occupied its space for about 10 years until about 2016.  For many years, the first-floor ballroom also featured class reunions and school dances, as well as public outside auction house usages. None of those businesses occupy the hotel at present. The hotel structure still stands, but is unoccupied. In recent years, sporadic renovations have occurred.

Along with the decline of the hot mineral water industry after World War II and the advent of penicillin, many of the bath-house-related businesses closed and those older structures were gradually demolished or reconfigured. Most of the remnants of the bath-house businesses had closed by the late 1960s. In the early 1980s, a short-lived revival arose with some new bathing structures that did not succeed, and neither did one other attempt at that industry's revitalization in that 1990s. Only the Buie-Allen Hospital (''circa'' 1912), now closed, and a very few former boarding houses remain as apartments, as well as some of the intact late 19th-century commercial district and numerous early 20th-century residences constructed by doctors and many others who served the bath-house clientele. Hot mineral water can still usually be obtained from a fountain outside the Marlin Chamber of Commerce in the 1929 pavilion when the city maintains that access. The former location of one of the several bath houses, the Sanitarium Bath House (burned down by accidental arson), is now a small city park featuring a gazebo that is adjacent to the old Houston and Texas Central railroad tracks. Those tracks are currently owned by the [[Union Pacific Railroad]]. The waters remain and at least three wells are still active, but not accessible. The local three-story Falls Community Hospital has heated (as of the 1980s) its structure via the mineral water.
The active Falls County Historical Commission has an extensive museum. Adjacent to the museum is a lively, active theater group, the Palace Theatre, that features plays and dinner-house productions, as well as occasional outside professional entertainment.