Page 157 - WINE DINE AND TRAVEL SUMMER 2022 DISCOVERING MADRID

Let me establish right away thvat the name French
Lick derives not from what you’re imagining, what-
ever it is you’re imagining. But more about that later.

outhern Indiana, where the town is lo- stories of illegal gambling halls as well.
cated, may not have the wow factor of The Roaring Twenties were in full throat in
Yellowstone, Yosemite, or the Grand French Lick, and the spas attracted such lumi-
S Canyon, but this corner of the United naries as Irving Berlin, Joe Louis, and Al
States has many charms to delight the senses. Capone, who, we are assured, went there just to
French Lick is one of these charms. This town relax. The image of the blubbery Scarface bob-
was a hopping destination in the late 1800s and bing in a malodorous bath, with bodyguards in
early 1900s, before the Great Depression put bulging suits watching his every dunk, is a diffi-
an end to the fun times. French Lick fell into a cult one, once conjured, to unconjure.
depression all its own after that, and after years There was strong competition among hote-
of decrepitude the town is enjoying a revival. liers in those days, and when the original West
If you’ve heard of French Lick before that is Baden Springs Hotel burned down in 1901, its
probably because it is best known as the boy- owner vowed to rebuild and reopen within a
hood home of Larry Bird, who catapulted to year. Indeed, the hotel was back in full swing in
fame as the celebrated playmaker for the Bos- 1902, bigger and better than it was before. The
ton Celtics when they dominated the National rebuilt hotel featured a dome, 200 feet in diam-
Basketball Association. One of Bird’s monikers eter, which still stands more than a century
was the “Hick from later, soaring over an
French Lick,” a crack atrium that was lined
at both Bird’s coun- with hotel rooms
try style and Indi- looking down on an
ana’s hicks-ville expansive floor. When
reputation. one stands at the
So about its impish edge of the atrium
appellation: The and looks up, it is
“French” part derives hard to imagine what
from French traders holds the dome aloft.
who frequented the It seems to defy grav-
area in early days, ity, and was so im-
and “Lick” from a pressive that its
natural salt lick and owners billed it as
sulphur springs that “the eighth wonder of
attracted deer and other animals. It was these the world,” joining a
mineral springs that provided the platform for a long list of such self-proclaimed wonders. We
highly successful resort area in the late 19th mustn’t let such shameless hyperbole detract
and early 20th centuries. Hotels and spas from the ceiling’s magnificence, however, as it is
sprang up in French Lick and its immediate truly an aesthetic and engineering marvel. From
neighbor, West Baden Springs, luring tourists its unveiling in 1902 until 1913, this lofty struc-
and fun seekers to partake of the springs’ re- ture was regarded as the largest free-spanning
puted healing properties. There are credible dome in the world, and the West Baden Springs

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