Kinzua Kuties

Yesterday the Kinzua Kuties (formerly a Red hat group) had our monthly outing. We traveled south of Erie, PA to the Riverside Dinner Theater in Cambridge Springs to see “Social Security”.
Lisa, Kitty and Joan sat down for a cup of coffee before the performance. We were served a lovely generous meal in the theater. Here are the girls checking in. The Riverside Inn was a famous destination.

In 1859, a well driller in nearby Titusville, named Col. Edwin L. Drake discovered oil. This discovery triggered "black gold fever" among French Creek Valley residents, inspiring many of them to look for oil, in the hopes of striking it rich.

One of these oil seekers was a local physician, Dr. John H. Gray, who owned a large farm right on the banks of French Creek. One day in early 1860, as he was walking along the banks of French Creek carrying a metal probing rod, he stopped to "lean and contemplate." When he did, the rod suddenly sank into the ground. Dr. Gray pulled the rod from the ground, thinking he had struck "black gold", but a jet of crystal spring water spurt forth instead. Doctor Gray then forced an old gun barrel into the opening, and the water flowed freely for the next 15 years. Although Dr. Gray was not too excited about this "water discovery," it was the turning point for the quiet little town of Cambridgeboro.

Soon, rumours began spreading around town that the men who worked on Gray's Farm and drank from the spring never got sick or were cured of diseases that they had. In 1884, Dr. Gray took a patient to Hot Springs, Arkansas, and was struck by the similarity of its water and that from his spring along French Creek.

Once home, he began prospecting in earnest, making more openings in the soil and discovering four more jets of the same "charged" spring water. He then began testing the water for medicinal purposes, treating cases of dyspepsia and kidney and liver complaints. He wrote that the "waters, unassisted, affected many cures."

Determined to give the world the benefit of the water's healing powers, Dr. Gray erected a spring house and began selling mineral water at a "nominal price." Cambridge Springs became the first health spa.