REMANTO - SALT CITY - GEUDA SPRINGS.

1872

Earnest Reiman laid out and platted the townsite of “Remanto” in 1872. It was located half a mile south of the town that became known as Salt City, Sumner County, Kansas.

1874

Winfield Courier, June 26, 1879 - Front Page.

SALT CITY, KANS., JUNE 10, 1879.

This is the famous salt region of Sumner County. It was laid out by Messrs. Mills and Foster in 1874. It is situated in the southeastern part of the county near the Arkansas River. It is surrounded by some of the best lands of the valley. The farms show that their owners understand their business, as they are well improved and cultivated. The population at the present time is only about fifty. It has a weekly mail, which arrives on Friday. It is very unjust to the people, as it arrives just at the right time to prevent them from receiving the weekly papers until they are at least ten days old. If the date of arrival was on Monday or Tuesday, it would be a vast advantage to them. Something ought to be done for them by the postmaster officials.

The town contains one business house, a drug store, a large blacksmith shop, and two hotels. The great future of the town is in their salt and mineral springs. The salt marsh, as it is called, covers an area of at least ten acres. Salt Creek runs through this marsh, and is fed by hundreds of small springs. The banks of the streams are as white as snow, from salt which covers the ground from one to four or five inches, all along its banks.

The water contains a large percent of salt. A test of four gallons yielded four pounds of salt, and the method of testing was very crude.

The large thing for this place is its mineral springs. There are a great many of them, and they are already known to contain medicinal properties of the highest order.

Winfield Courier, July 24, 1874.

In company with W. W. Walton, our efficient county surveyor, who kindly furnished the rig, we tripped over to the Salt Springs last Monday, where we arrived just in time for dinner, of which we were bountifully supplied at the “Mills” House. There we met J. T. Hall, formerly of the Valley House of this place, who expects to do the honors for the new Hotel, which they hope to build in a short time. After dinner we went down to see the “Springs,” which spurt out in a low flat, near the Arkansas River. There we found Judge McIntire and son, busy filling and refilling the vats, in which, by the action of the sun, the brine is crystallized.

There is plenty of salt in the water there; we know for we drank an abundance of it, and one or two of the springs seem to be impregnated with sulphur, for the water tastes just like rotten turkey eggs mixed in wet gun powder. It isn’t considered the most delicious drink in the world; in fact, few strangers take more than a taste, sometimes contenting themselves with the smell. But the people over there are hopeful that a fortune is certainly in store for them, and he would be foolhardy, indeed, who would intimate, to a dweller near the salt marsh, that such is not the case. Yea, better not say, that even gold and silver ore, is not to be found in plenty, when by the aid of machinery the bowels of the earth be properly torn up.

We were shown a handful of black sand by an enthusiastic individual, who insisted that we must have poor eye sight to fail to detect the golden particles mixed therewith.

Todd and Royal of Wichita have bought a quarter section of land near the springs, and expect, so we learned, to bore for coal in a short time. All agree that the coveted anthrax can be found at the trifling distance of from 700 to 1,000 feet.

The town is laid out very nicely on the hill a mile or so south of the Springs. There is one store, one saloon, and one blacksmith shop. The capacity of the works at present is about one ton per week, but it seems to us that it could, with the proper fixtures, be made to turn off 100 ton just as well. We do not predict any very great future for Remanto on account of the Springs alone.

1876

The Wichita Eagle printed an article in May 1876, which stated that Messrs. Todd & Royal, residents and former merchants of Wichita, had become the proprietors of Salt City, Sumner, County, Kansas, and had been boring for coal on their property. They had no success.

1878

Winfield Courier, August 1, 1878.

Salt City Mineral Springs.

Salt City, fourteen miles southwest of Winfield, on the line between Cowley and Sumner counties, promises to become the Saratoga of Kansas. It has four mineral springs that will become famous. We have known before this that these springs possessed very curious mineral properties, but have paid little attention to the claim that they had medicinal and curative properties of the highest order. But recently events have proved all that has been claimed for them. Several persons seriously afflicted with erysipelas, rheumatism, eruptions, and various cutaneous diseases have visited these springs and by drinking their waters and bathing in them have experienced rapid and wonderful relief.

Among these cases we will mention that of Judge McDonald. He has had a most terrible eruption covering his face, head, and neck with sores, scabs, and pustules, and his face was bleeding in many places. On the 28th ult., he visited the springs and drank and bathed freely. In less than three hours the scabs came off his face and his appearance was wonderfully improved. He has since, for three days, continued to use this water, and now looks and feels like a very different man and has every prospect of a speedy and perfect case.

Winfield Courier, December 5, 1878.

Mr. Thomas Royal, of Salt City, called on us last Saturday, having just arrived. He owns the town site of Salt City and has had it surveyed and platted. He is prepared to sell lots on advantageous terms to settlers. Mr. Royal informs us that large numbers of invalids are coming to Salt City to use the waters of the medicinal springs which are near Salt City, and that the water is proving highly beneficial. Messrs. Hackney & McDonald, of Winfield, who are the proprietors of the Springs, propose putting in tubing for the conveyance of the water to baths and drinking reservoirs. This may yet be a popular resort not only for invalids but for the fashionable world. Wichita Beacon.

1882

The transition from “Salt City” to “Geuda Springs” took place in 1882, as related by “Veritas,” a correspondent of the Kansas City Journal.

Arkansas City Traveler, February 22, 1882. Editorial Page.

A NEW TOWN.

GEUDA SPRINGS, KANSAS.

What Pluck and Enterprise Will Do.

The Medical Qualities of the Springs.

The Salt Works.

[Correspondence of K. C. Journal.]

HUNNEWELL, KAS., FEB. 9. As your valuable paper, although published in Missouri, is eminently a Kansas paper, I take it for granted that any items of interest from our State will be acceptable to your numerous readers.

We have a new town springing up here in Sumner and Cowley counties, for the county line runs through the town, that bids fair to make quite a sensation in the next twelve months.

I mean the new town of Geuda Springs, formerly Salt City. The new town is springing up like magic. Already some twenty-five new houses have been built within the past few months, and some fifty others contracted to be finished by the 1st of April. A $10,000 stock company has been formed to erect a large and commodious hotel. The foundation for the new sanatarium, a large, three story stone building, which is designed as a hotel, bath house, etc., for invalids has been laid, and a number of other large buildings will be commenced soon. The medical qualities of the water have been thoroughly tested, and is pronounced the best in the country. A number of patients who have tested these waters and those of Eureka Springs, Ark., pronounce those of Geuda Springs far superior to the former.

One of the most singular features of these springs is the fact that there are several distinct springs; all large and affording an abundance of water, not four feet distant one from the other, and all of different mineral qualities.

The famous Sumner County salt works are here, and in a few years the manufacture of salt at this place will be an important industry.

About 160 yards from the springs is a large salt spring. The proprietors have put a large iron tube in this, which throws the water up some six feet. It is the intention to fix here for a regular plunge bath, where the visitor can take a genuine ocean swim.

Just in front of the springs, and some fifty yards distant, commences a beautiful lake, which extends for a mile and a half, where the pleasure of boat riding can be indulged in to the fullest extent. A beautiful carriage drive extends along the lake; trees are being set out on both sides of the drive. In fact, no place in the country offers so many inducements for either the invalid or the pleasure seeker as this.

Heretofore there have been no accommodations of any kind, but now numerous cottages are being built. Dr. Perry has just finished ten handsome cottage houses, which are all spoken for. He will build ten more at once. These, with the new hotels and other accommodations, it is thought, will be ample to accommodate the vast number of visitors who are expected at the springs the coming season. Hon. C. R. Mitchell, who has had the direct management of the improvement, has been indefatigable in his labors, and his work now begins to show.

Of course we, of Sumner County, are proud of anything that adds to the wealth and prosperity of our county, and it is with no little pride that we hail the new town that is now springing up like magic in our midst. VERITAS.

Geuda Springs, Kansas, in 1882.

The first building in the new town of Geuda Springs, Kansas, was erected by an Indian woman of the Sac & Fox tribe. The main street was called Central Avenue. It ran north and south and was the dividing line between Sumner and Cowley counties. All of the business portion of Geuda Springs was located on the west side of the street in Sumner County. A portion on the west side was incorporated: they had a mayor and city council, with good sidewalks, and other improvements. On the east side of Central Avenue there was merely a village.

THE GEUDA SPRINGS.

The first white men to see these springs were a party of buffalo hunters who in March 1867 came upon a band of nearly five hundred Osage Indians camped near them and using the water in many ways, apparently for medicinal purposes. These hunters tried the waters themselves and discovered they had a different taste from most water and that they were not altogether pleasant. No further investigations were made at that time, although the location of the springs and their use by the Indians were reported by the party in many towns in the eastern part of Kansas.

The Osages, Sac and Fox, Kiowas, Comanches, Cheyennes, Arapahos, Cherokees, and Poncas were frequent visitors to “Geuda Springs,” each tribe having a different name in their own language for the springs, but all meaning the same thing, “healing” or “curing.”

Before the springs were touched by the white man, they were not separated. They flowed in one common stream into a large circular pool, described by one of the oldest settlers as the “mud hole.”

Being so far from the nearest settlements, the springs were used by Indians only until 1870 when W. J. Walpole, a civil engineer, found several salt-beds and springs in addition to the mineral springs. He proved up on the land in July 1872 as a pre-emption. Walpole filed March 8, 1873, on 156.75 acres by Patent from the United States of America on the fractional Southwest quarter of Section 6, in Township 34 South, of Range 3 East.

As applicants for patents often did, Mr. Walpole sold to Brainard Goff, Jr., of Cowley County, Kansas, one-half acre of land near the large salt spring. Somehow a record of this sale was not completed and it was involved in the litigations held of this property in 1916.

Winfield Courier, Thursday, May 15, 1873.

[From the Arkansas City Traveler.]

Last week we saw some of the best salt we have seen in this State, manufactured by Goff & Marshall, of Salt Springs, this county. These gentlemen have their vats in working order, from which they manufacture thirty barrels of salt per week, by evaporation only. As many more vats are being made, they will soon be able to turn out twice as much salt as at present.

Mr. Goff brought into this market yesterday 1,000 pounds of beautiful crystallized salt. All the salt needed in this locality will be furnished from the Salt Springs.

Following Mr. Goff, there were many claims for the land containing the springs.

The land was mortgaged in 1872 for $240.00. I. C. Loomis held the mortgage.

W. J. Walpole of Denison, Texas, issued his power of attorney to H. O. Meigs on February 13, 1873. I. C. Loomis and his wife, Harriet R. Loomis, assigned their power of attorney to Samuel Hoyt. Their Mortgage was released March 13, 1873.

In 1873-1874 attorneys representing Walpole, Loomis, and others were busy making loans and releasing mortgages.

Winfield Courier, Thursday, June 26, 1873.

[Report from Correspondent, Bolton Township.]

The Salt Springs Manufacturing Company are turning out over fifty bushels of pure white salt each week, which is used exclusively by parties in this section of country.

Winfield Courier, July 10, 1874.

[From Arkansas City Traveler.]

SALT SPRINGS.

Judge Peffer, Col. J. C. McMullen, E. P. Kinne, Mr. Loomis, and several ladies, also the “Special Contributor,” visited the salt works on the 6th. We found Judge McIntire superintendent of the works. Our July sun is doing the handsome thing for these just now, giving a product of a ton per week.

There are also springs containing, apparently, Glauber’s salts and other minerals in solution. We concluded the “warm spring” to be caused by the action of the solar heat.

Winfield Courier, September 11, 1874.

Kinne & Meigs purchased one acre near Salt City for $500, containing the sulphur springs. On this acre is a pond of water, from which three different kinds of mineral water can be dipped, which is claimed by persons who have drank and bathed in it, to be very healthy. Press.

On May 11, 1876, W. J. Walpole, by H. O. Meigs, attorney in fact, sold the mortgage to David J. Bright of Cowley County, Kansas, for $516.37.

The Indians would not stay off the land that Bright had bought, which contained the springs. He soon sold it. Then in 1878 Bright purchased the land again from Cowley County Sheriff R. L. Walker.

Winfield Courier, February 28, 1878.

Real Estate Transfer. R. L. Walker to David J. Bright, sw 6, 34, 3, 160 acres, $585.

Bright was sued by Mary H. Buck. He hired Hackney & McDonald to handle the suit, which started in April 1878. In order to pay them, the property he owned containing the springs was transferred to Hackney & McDonald. The case was later dismissed.

Winfield Courier, March 7, 1878.

Real Estate Transfer. David Bright and wife to Hackney & McDonald, sw. 6, 34, 3; 159½ acres, $290.

Mr. Hackney and Mr. McDonald were the first to start improvements on the springs. They cleared the area and piped the seven springs into an area with steps leading down to them. They fenced in the 25 foot area where the springs bubbled up. They built a bath house, and covered the springs with a very nice spring house. Unfortunately, their busy practice prevented them from continuing development of the springs.

On August 18, 1879, Clinton R. Mitchell and Mary E. Mitchell, his wife, sold to Albert A. Newman an undivided one-half of the entire quarter for $3,000.

Mr. Mitchell and Mr. Newman had several mortgages on the land and continued making improvements. They built a bath house, cemented the floor of the spring area, and built a two-story building over them.

Arkansas City Traveler, August 20, 1879.

Yesterday Hackney & McDonald perfected the sale of their Salt Springs land. The farm consisted of 159 acres of land, on which are situated the famous mineral springs, and was sold to C. R. Mitchell, of Arkansas City, for the sum of $4,000. Messrs. Hackney & McDonald have held the lands some eighteen months, and make a clear profit of $3,500 on the sale. We congratulate them upon their good fortune. Telegram.

These famous springs are now owned in partnership by C. R. Mitchell and A. A. Newman, of this place. They are both shrewd businessmen, have plenty of capital at their command, and if they don’t make three or four times $3,500 out of this venture, you may have our hat. Bob and Al. seldom make much noise, but they know a good thing when they see it.

Arkansas City Traveler, August 27, 1879.

Messrs. Newman and Mitchell, the gentlemen who lately purchased the mineral springs at Salt City, were at that place last Wednesday, looking out a location for their new hotel, which is to be completed this season. It is stated that the hotel when finished will cost ten thousand dollars, and will have every convenience, bath-rooms, etc., and all modern improvements. Wellington Vidette.

Winfield Courier, September 18, 1879.

[From correspondent: Mrs. H. P. Mansfield, Winfield, Kansas.]

SNOW HILL, SALT CITY, KS., Sept. 12th, 1879.

Yesterday Mitchell and Newman came up with shovels, forks, rods, and pipes, to play in the springs, and upon drawing an auger attached to a rod 20 feet long from a spring which had the old pipe, stones were thrown out as large as a goose-egg, which had every appearance of having been melted by extreme heat. What these gentlemen will accomplish they themselves do not know, but it will take a small fortune to employ competent men to put things in order, to make a paying investment. Then look out for a nickle a glass for this medicinal water. Better all come this year, while you can pitch your tent anywhere, wear calico dresses, dispense with cosmetics, shoot birds, and romp to your heart’s content.

Winfield Courier, January 15, 1880.

[Correspondent “Rudy” in Salt City.]

Mitchell & Newman still continue to bring forward material for the improvement of the springs, and whenever the weather will permit, are at work.

Arkansas City Traveler, March 10, 1880.

Salt City is expecting the boom in the near future. Considerable improvements are underway, among which is the new hotel building of Messrs. Mitchell & Newman, of this city. These gentlemen are making extensive preparations for the accommodation of a large number of guests who annually visit the mineral springs at that place to partake of the health restoring qualities of those wonderful waters.

Arkansas City Traveler, April 21, 1880.

Mr. Mitchell is giving his attention to improving his property at Salt City, which he expects to have in readiness for the accommodation of a large number of guests who will visit those wonderful, health-restoring springs during the season.

Arkansas City Traveler, April 28, 1880.

Rudolph Hoffmaster has rented the Star Restaurant to Mrs. Finney, who will carry on the business henceforth. Mr. Hoffmaster and family have removed to the Salt Springs and are now in charge of the Newman & Mitchell bath rooms at that place.

Picnic at Geuda Springs.

Arkansas City Traveler, April 28, 1880.

Life’s chequered path is full of woe

And perils beset us wherever we go.

The above is apropos of an adventure which befell a party of ladies and gentlemen from this city who were enjoying a picnic in the immediate vicinity of the sanatorium and baths recently built by Newman & Mitchell on the borders of that modern Siloam—Salt Springs. The dramatis personae at this matinee were Mrs. Hutchins, of Iowa, Mrs. Bonsall, Mr. and Mrs. T. C. Bird, and several visitors from Ohio, who one and all did themselves very much proud by the manner in which they rendered their respective parts of this serio-comic escapade.

All were comfortably seated around the orthodox picnic board and reveling in the natural beauties of this classic spot, yet not so absorbed as to prevent them enjoying the goodly comestibles, which were rapidly disappearing before appetites sharpened by a three hours’ ride in a Kansas zephyr.

Suddenly their affrighted gaze beheld a cloud of inky blackness, here and there rent by forked tongues of flame, which rushing forward with frightful velocity seemed to hiss and crackle in anticipation of the holocaust about to be offered up. The wildest confusion ensued; gentlemen rushed frantically to the rescue of their teams, while the ladies grabbed promiscuously for queensware and rent the air with shrieks of dire distress. ’Tis always darkest just before dawn, and so in this case, when hope had almost fled and the inevitable was about to be accepted, the raging element sprang towards its prey, but the grass gave out and it sank to rise no more.

Lunch was resumed and each one admitted that collectively there had been somewhat of a scare but insisted that individually it required something more than an ordinary prairie fire to make them start.

Arkansas City Traveler, Wednesday, May 12, 1880.

[Salt City Correspondents: “My Wife and I.”]

Salt City has improved wonderfully during the last six months. Several new buildings have been erected in that time. Berkey’s large stone is nearing completion, and Newman & Mitchell’s bath house would be an ornament to Saratoga. New people are seen on our streets daily, some investing, and others rusticating in the suburbs, where Mr. Hoffmaster, formerly of your city, ministers to their comfort.

Arkansas City Traveler, July 28, 1880. Front Page.

[From the Topeka Commonwealth.]

Geuda is a Ponca word, meaning healing waters. The springs, eight in number, and all different, are near Salt City, in Sumner County, Kansas. The nearest railroad is Arkansas City, about eight miles southeast of the Springs, although they are within a circle formed through Arkansas City, Winfield, Oxford, Wellington, and Hunnewell, all railroad towns. The proprietors, Messrs. Newman and Mitchell, of Arkansas City, have erected a commodious and tasteful bath house at the Springs, and the place is beginning to be quite a resort for the ailing. Some remarkable cures of catarrh, rheumatism, and cutaneous diseases are related. There are always camps of invalids in the vicinity. When the analysis is completed, the Commonwealth will probably have more to relate.

Arkansas City Traveler, August 3, 1881.

The people of Cowley, Sumner, and adjoining counties are just wakening up to the fact that the “Geuda Mineral Springs,” near Salt City, Kansas, are fast becoming quite a popular health resort. The history of these springs is, that the s. w. ¼ of Sec. 6, R. 34, Tp. 3, on the west line of Cowley County, was purchased of the government by a Mr. Walpole when the Osage lands first came into market, supposing it to be quite valuable on account of a large salt marsh and some very clear water springs that were on the land, since which time the land has passed through several hands.

The quarter section opposite this tract was at about the same time purchased by other parties for the famous salt spring on that tract, and for over two years salt was manufactured there, but on account of the vats being constructed of inferior lumber, and because there was no transportation for the salt produced, the manufacture was abandoned until this summer, when James Hill & Co. got a ten year’s lease of the land and have commenced to manufacture again, and the salt produced is of the very best quality, equal to any salt we have ever seen, and it is claimed that the water produces 1¾ pounds to the gallon, being equal to the great Syracuse salt well, at Syracuse, New York, heretofore claimed to be the strongest salt water in the world.

Messrs. Hill & Co. are under contract to manufacture 500,000 pounds of this salt the coming year, and at least 1,000,000 per year for the balance of the term of their lease.

As the water is almost inexhaustible, the prospects for an extensive salt manufactory appears to be good.

On September 13, 1881, Albert A. Newman and Mary M. Newman, his wife, sold to Clinton R. Mitchell his undivided one-half of the property for $10,000. This left Mr. Mitchell the sole owner of the land except for the one-half acre that Mr. Walpole sold to Mr. Goff in 1871 so that Goff could make salt.

Arkansas City Traveler, September 14, 1881.

[From Winfield Daily Telegram.]

C. R. Mitchell has lately bought out the interest of A. A. Newman, and is now making arrangements to build a sanitarium. A gentleman from Illinois is in Chicago purchasing the material for ten cottages; other parties are making arrangements to put up a good hotel.