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| Long before the white man
discovered the valley of healing waters, the Sioux and Cheyenne Indian
tribes fought for possession of the natural warm water springs.
Legend tells us that the battle raged on the high peak above the springs
and the Sioux emerged victorious. The Mammoth spring at the north end, in the interior of the Plunge, is know as the "Old Original Indian Spring." Here the Indians drank and bathed in its warm healing water. In the spring of 1876, Colonel W. J. Thornby arrived at the present site of Hot Springs and discovered the source of the warm creek. Near the big spring where the Plunge was later built, he lopped off the top of a cedar sapling, blazed the trunk, and wrote with a lead pencil: "This is my spring, W. J. Thornby." In 1881, the plunge Springs were held by Joe Brimdschmidt. He traded his right to the Plunge area to Joe Petty then sold the Plunge Springs to Dr. Stewart, who filed on the surround land. Finally the Evans Plunge, named after its builder, was built in 1890 over numerous small, sparkling springs, and one Mammoth spring of mineral water. Originally, Evans Plunge and other mineral baths in Hot Springs were sought as a cure-all for a multitude of illnesses. From an old book by Dr. W. E. Fitch, Mineral Water in the United States. "They were (the springs) the resort of the Indians long before the white man found his way into the jealously guarded realms of the Black Hills and were considered by the red man as a panacea for all ills." "This water has been found useful in the treatment of chronic diseases of the gastrointestinal trace, diseases of the liver and biliary passages, and in rheumatism and arthritic joint disturbances, gout and others." A lot has changed in Hot Springs since 1890. No longer sought as a cure for Ills, the water still invites visitors for yesterdays healing waters in today's Evans plunge. |
