History: A Healthy Departure

Back in the 1830s, the arrival of summer meant “taking the waters” to residents of the Lowcountry. Note the phrase is not “taking to the waters.” Because, rather than take a dip in the lukewarm waves of the Atlantic, Charlestonians flocked to the cool mineral springs of the Upstate. And the most popular spa of those antebellum days was Chick Springs, located in what was then known as the Greenville District.

Though Governor John Drayton noted a sulfur spring flowing from Paris Mountain back in 1802, the Upstate waters were not made available to the health-conscious until Dr. Burwell Chick (who incidentally hailed from Charleston) came across the mineral spring near present-day Taylors while on a deer hunting expedition in 1838. Tapping the experience of some local American Indians, Dr. Chick was led to Lick Spring, a purported place of healing for native tribes. The soil surrounding the springs was said to be particularly effective at healing sores.

Riding the crest of a growing national health craze, Chick Springs opened in July 1842. Initially the resort (if one could call it that with only twenty-five bed frames, fifty mattresses, four settees, a piano, and a billiard table) did well by providing “remarkable cures that were highly efficacious to invalids.” The spring’s mineral water was sold in one-gallon bottles and billed, at one time, as “the most delightful and best kidney remedy you ever used.”

When Dr. Chick died in 1847, his sons took over and expanded the facilities to include different kinds of therapeutic treatments such as dancing in the ballroom and tenpin on the lawn. The arrival of railway service further facilitated travel to the ever-growing resort, as did a special stagecoach from the train depot to its door

The resort’s popularity peaked in the summer of 1860, with the manager’s records reporting more than 100 visitors a day in August. If guests couldn’t get enough of a cure while on the grounds, visitors—undaunted by the eggy smell of sulfur—could take its healing waters home in a bottle and dose themselves, just as they would with popular patent medicines.

Two years later, the hotel burned and went through a series of owners, each eager to restore the business. But none could. Chick Springs enjoyed one last, brief hurrah during the Great Depression before its doors closed for good.
The waters of Lick Creek still run through the site of the former resort (located near the modern-day intersection of East Main Street and Wade Hampton Boulevard in Taylors). Chick Springs Historical Society is working to turn part of the property, where a small swimming lake and springhouse still remain, into a public park with walking trails and historical markers so that the resort’s history might forever be preserved.