We call this the Donkey starter ?

[waywardangler]

   I probably get 300-400 emails a week that go directly to spam on that subject, Tales.  Strangers are sure concerned about parts of me my wife is not concerned about.

[KC]

I find it awkward and embarrassing when those commercials come on in front of my kids and mixed company!

[greenacres]

The vitamins of today are also questionable products. If you eat a healthy diet you do not need vitamins. They are an exspensive pee, as my Dr. says. There's vitiamin water even. That must be our mineral water of yersteryear!

[talesofthesevenseas]

I grew up just below Alum Rock Park which was famous for the healthful properties of it's mineral waters in the Victorian era. As late as the 1970's I can remember meeting an elderly man there whose son had brought him to the park so that he could collect the mineral water to drink, and he still believed it would cure his ails. The natural springs were enclosed in rock alcoves where you could fill your jugs. Here's an example:



This gazebo has been there since the late 1800's and appears on a lot of the old postcards. It was originally a place to wait for the train that came up from downtown San Jose. When I was a kid, the rock thing in the center featured piped in fountains of all the different types of mineral waters from the various springs. It was fun to go around and taste them all. The sulpher water was particularly nasty and smelly! Now I think it's just a standard drinking fountain if I remember correctly. I used to board my horse here and spent my youth/teenage years practically living in this park. I remember having races with the other horsemen on the lawn you see behind it at night!



Here's an old postcards showing the same gazebo:





One of the many old stone bridges from the old Victorian "spa" days



Old bath house photo:

[KC]

We have gone up to Hot Springs Arkansas and enjoyed the spa/springs there - it is run by the state I believe now.  Was used for the ill/mentally ill/etc.  I remember heating our eldest son's baby bottle in the spring/water when we were out walking around it was SOOOO hot.  There were originally 8 bathhouses and a theraputic hospital (that is still in operation). Only 1 bathhouse run by the state is still in operation.
"Steeped in the amazing healing thermal waters, history, scientific/geological experiences, beautiful architecture, hiking, camping and just plain enjoyment - Hot Springs National Park is just plain fun.
Hot Springs National Park. Hot Springs is the smallest and oldest of the parks in the National Park System, dating back to 1832, when Congress established - 40 years ahead of Yellowstone - the first federally protected area in the nation's history. Hot Springs Reservation - which was renamed Hot Springs National Park in 1921 - originally was created by Congress to protect the 47 naturally flowing thermal springs on the southwestern slope of Hot Springs Mountain."
 



Shows a manifold that regulates the water before it is used in the bathhouse so it doesn't boil people to death.

[regularjoe2]

Been to the springs in Arkansas many times too , KC .

The 'main' bathhouse-row/center/area of the 'springs district' have seen better days , but are by no means in as bad of condition (mostly) as when they were left in disrepair for years .

I'm glad that I missed that era of 'healthcare' , especially the iced-coffee enemas .

Don't get me wrong though , I love hot springs , including those here in Washington state !

[greenacres]

They also refilled the bottles , and who knows how clean they were. It could have been ale, and then it could be soda in the bottle when they refilled it. I have to check and see what the laws were in those days, or how they cleaned their bottles. The people in Elfreth's Alley died from Yellow Fever, due to the privies and unclean practices. I assume they just rinsed them with water. I rather hop in a spring than drink out of a bottle.

[KC]

regjoe...I laughed out so-o-o-o loud that my family had to run and see when i read about the iced coffee enemas!  Now that one is a new one for me to hear of! (They don't offer that at Starbucks or Seattle's Best!  LOL)

Yep, the Health Dept wasn't very healthful back then....did the best they could on what they knew.  We are living on other people's sorrows from those days.

[cogar]

When I first moved to Upstate NY, the Mohawk Valley, I wonder why so many towns and villages were named “Springs”, ….. like Saratoga Springs, Sharon Springs, Richfield Springs, etc.

I eventually learned why and this is one of the reasons it all got started, to wit:

In 1767, Sir William Johnson, British soldier and a hero of the French and Indian Wars, was brought about ten miles (16 km) west of the village, to what would become the city of Saratoga Springs, by Native American friends, to treat war wounds at a spring thought to have medicinal properties. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saratoga_Springs,_New_York

And evolved into this, to wit:

They Came to New York for the Waters - Upstate New York is hardly known as a center of mineral springs. But in the 19th century, the golden age of mineral-water spas, at least 50 New York towns, scattered from Long Island to Lake Ontario, had resorts or sanitariums drawing on water emerging from rocky places underground and laced with elements like magnesium, calcium, potassium, iron and sulfur. “There were more mineral baths available in New York than in any other state,” said Charlotte Wytias, the program manager at the Clifton Springs Hospital’s spa.
http://travel.nytimes.com/2008/05/09/travel/escapes/09Mineral.html?

pagewanted=print

[KC]

Wow!

I know in Florida they Corp of Engineers still keeps up with all the springs - because I was from the area that these Cold Water springs were at.  Just north of Orlando, the area around Sanford, Lake Mary, Alta Monte Springs, etc.  They are all over the area.
These are the ones that are founded as state parks http://www.dep.state.fl.us/springs/locations.htm
and these are some that are on private property...//www.waymarking.com/cat/details.aspx?f=1&guid=29f22874-256f-4fcc-a6b8-dbf4983cf230&lat=28.888383&lon=-82.58895&t=6&gid=3[/url]
But there are literally hundreds & hundreds that are small and are great swimming holes!!!!! 
There is a guy who documents them all for treasure hunters.  They have springs that were known for healing properties and ones that believed helped in early baptisms. 

[talesofthesevenseas]

I have only been to a hot springs once, in a tiny town near Lake Tahoe called Markleeville. At that place the spring water is so hot that they have to cool the water down so that it isn't scalding hot and they pipe it into a large swimming pool, where you paddle around and soak with a bunch of other folks. (Everyone is in swimming suits if anyone is wondering, LOL!) I remember that it did make your skin feel absolutely tingly and wonderful afterward!

[greenacres]

My son was staying in Jackson Hole, and they rented snowmobiles and went to the hot springs. It sounds beautiful, but cold aftrewards.

[KC]

Going back to an earlier conversation in this thread....Moxie Soda was original touted as Moxie Nerve Tonic until the 1906 Pure Food & Drug Act was passed.
http://www.retroplanet.com/blog/retro-memories/remember-when/moxie-soda/

[greenacres]

The first picture are 3 bottles two are Charles E. Hires and the other Heinle's Root Beer. You mixed it with water. I also have Bireley's which I think is a form of Moxie, but the second pictures is a Philadelphia soda. It's name is "Franks". I have every size and shape. I think this is one of the oldest bottles of it. The thrid picture is of the base with the initials J.F.& S Sorry about the stuff in the background.

[KC]

Gotta admit I have never seen a Beatles matryoshka doll! A first for me!  LOL

FYI - If initial(s) embossed on the base of a bottle match a firm name (other than a glass factory) on the front, the basemark will more than likely not be a glass manufacturer's mark. This is very frequently the case, especially with soda, mineral water, beer and other bottles of the 1880-1930 period, in which the initial(s) of the "end user" (such as the bottler, brewery, drug manufacturer, or other firm for which the bottle was made) appear embossed on the base.

The only thing I can find that they made were Hutchinson Soda Bottles and Hutchinson was out of Old Forge, Pennsylvania .