Mineral spas are resorts developed around naturally occurring mineral spring locales. Spas grew in reputation in the nineteenth century on into the late middle-twentieth century for their purported healing or healthful benefits to those wealthy enough to partake of their waters. This was called a Mineral cure and gave let to the phrase 'taking a cure', still used as a euphemism, normally though today for one trying to kick a drug dependency.
In many cases, they were located in mountainous locales that gave an additional excuse to leave the drudgery of a hot house in warm weather during summer's onset and were seasonally populated by the well-to-do. They eventually became early vacation spots with the counter-Victorian work ethic 'rationale' of health as an excuse to have fun and mix with one's peers in recreation.
Subsequently, many such became the seed stock for today's modern vacation resorts. Locations such as Steamboat Springs, Vail, St Moritz, Mineral Wells first became popular for the questionable health benefits of mineral or soda-water soaks, ingestion, and clean outs during the hey-day of patent medicines and backward medical knowledge. United States President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, a Polio survivor, regularly visited Warm Springs and other Hot Springs for restorative soaks. While his cousin Theodore Roosevelt became known as a manly-man of incredible endurance, he was a sickly child suffering from asthma and 'took cures' periodically in an attempt to gain better health.
Evolution of the resort
As the Victoria era came to an end, the influences of the industrial revolution created more and more varied members of the upper middle class. The concepts of vacationing, tourism, and travel became less the property of the old monied, and shared by an increasing population base of those who could afford holiday trips like the rich. Such adventures had much allure in the days before any audio-visual entertainments outside a live orchestra. Thus, the spas began attracting an increasing number of local patrons as well as those from afar just at the time when the burgeoning numbers were able to take advantage of the newfangled automobile and the now extensive railways throughout most all of Europe and the United States. The Spa towns already had infrastructure and attractions in place to assuage such desires, and the modern tourist trip began to take its familiar form. Other technologies came into play (Ski's, Ski boats, etc.)
Notable mineral spas and springs
Africa
Asia
- Yuseong-gu, Daejeon, South Korea
Europe
- Baden-Baden, Germany
- Bad Neuenahr, Germany
- Bath, England
- Budapest, Hungary
- Vrnjačka Banja, seven springs spa in Serbia
- Bukovička Banja, Serbia
- Hévíz — famous spa-town since Roman times in Western Hungary.
- St Moritz — birthplace of the year round resort and winter sports of several kinds.
- Spa — origin of the name.
- Krynica-Zdrój, Poland
- Nałęczów, Poland
Americas
- Saratoga Springs, New York
- French Lick, Indiana
- Mineral Wells, Texas
- Phoenix, Arizona
- Spas of America, Mineral Spa Experiences
- Steamboat Springs, Colorado
- Warm Springs, Georgia
- Warm Springs, Virginia
- Calistoga Springs, California
- Mount Clemens, Michigan
- Two Bunch Palms, Desert Hot Springs, California
Jamaica
- Milk River Bath, Clarendon
Oceania and Australia
- Hepburn Springs Australia http://www.mineralwater.vic.gov.au/quicksite/ http://www.spatown.com.au/Forms/Default.aspx
- Daylesford, Australia http:
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