Warm Springs Baths

D-46

The Warm Springs Baths, an example of 19th-century medicinal resort architecture, formed the centerpiece of a small village that served as the seat of Bath County from 1791 until 1908. Thomas Lewis and his son John developed a resort around the naturally warmed mineral springs before the Revolutionary War. Later served by a noted hotel, the springs became a popular destination for people who sought fashionable society and the waters' reputed curative powers. The octagonal frame bath house was constructed in the 1820s, while the 22-sided Ladies’ Bath House was added by the mid-1870s. After the Warm Springs Hotel was razed in 1925, The Homestead assumed management of the Warm Springs Baths.

Department of Historic Resources, 2019

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References/Bibliographic Citation:

Warm Springs Bath Houses, National Register of Historic Places nomination (1969). Warm Springs Bath Houses, National Register Update and Boundary Increase (2017). Christopher E. Hendricks, The Backcountry Towns of Colonial Virginia (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2006). “Taking the Waters: 19th Century Medicinal Springs of Virginia”: http://exhibits.hsl.virginia.edu/springs/warm/ Virginia Gazette, 27 June 1751, 25 Aug. 1768, 25 May 1770, 23 April 1772, 15 Aug. 1777. Washington National Intelligencer, 15 May 1805. Richmond Enquirer, 17 Sept. 1833. Richmond Whig, 26 June, 18 Aug. 1835. Richmond Daily Dispatch, 1 July 1869. Richmond Times-Dispatch, 14 June 1925, 18 Sept. 1927. Newark Daily Advertiser, 31 July 1834. Harold B. Gill Jr., “Taking the Cure: Colonial Spas, Springs, Baths, and Fountains of Health,” https://www.history.org/Foundation/journal/Summer02/cure.cfm “Journal of a Trip to the Mountains, Caves and Springs of Virginia,” Southern Literary Messenger, March 1838 Charlene M. Boyer Lewis, Ladies and Gentlemen on Display: Planter Society at the Virginia Springs, 1790-1860 (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 2001). Philip Holbrook Nicklin, “Letters Descriptive of the Virginia Springs” (1837).