Health and Healing at the Springs
The Anishinaabe migration to the Great Lakes region followed a prophecy to seek wild rice (manoomin), the food that grows on the water, which was historically abundant throughout the region.
The Great Lakes for the Anishinaabe were both live givers and life takers. Michigan’s largest spring, Kitch-iti-ki-pi or “Big Spring,” is the center of life-giving legends. The original name given to the spring was “Mirror of Heaven” in Ojibwe. There are several purported Native American legends regarding Kitch-iti-kipi. One Menominee and Chippewa legend details that Kitch-iti-ki-pi is medicine water or “Mashkiq’kiu-e’pish” that gives life and health. The tale purports that the spring has magical healing and rejuvenating powers. Natives used Kitch-iti-kipi’s mineral infused water in healing tonics and rituals.
Access to the “mineral waters” was limited until the U.S. Government signed their final treaty with the Anishinaabe in 1855, and the state wasn’t developed commercially until the lumber boom of the 1870s. Almost as soon as the treaty was signed, people were sent to Michigan to “take the cure” and drink the healthful waters. As a result, the Victorian middle class flocked to the area to take in the healing waters. One of the state’s unparalleled resources, or at least so it was thought in the 1870s, was healthful water. Sanitariums popped up in Battle Creek, Ypsilanti, Mt. Clemens, St. Louis, and many other places. Each resort and bathing facility established at a mineral spring came complete with a written, scientific analysis of the water and its healing powers, and testimonials of previous guests whose health had improved. Ordinary Americans flocked to the springs on vacation and for healing experiences.
Between 1880 and 1900, Ypsilanti became known for its mineral water enterprises and resorts. In 1886, an advertisement for the Ypsilanti spring touted that the waters were “nature's greatest remedy for disordered blood.” The booklet further detailed that in search for pure water, the paper mill had stumbled upon the healing waters by accident. Its discovery and success were celebrated as “without parallel in Europe,” the discovery entirely “unexpected and its healing powers unquestioned after six months” (Ypsilanti Mineral Springs, 2).
One such account of the healing spring in Ypsilanti details: “The cases of Mr. Kimbel and Mr. Guild, currently believed to be genuine cancer cases, -and scores of cases of rheumatism, dyspepsia and kidney troubles cured, set the town of Ypsilanti in an uproar of interest, not to say excitement. Meantime friends had informed friends, and the water was shipped away and used in distant parts, without even the knowledge of the owners of the mill, until long afterwards reports of the cures in cases never dreamed of by them came back to their notice. A remarkable case in New York City — a very wealthy lady (as it is said) with cancer of the womb, a case in Toledo, Ohio, one at Bay City; several cases of dyspepsia, kidney complaint, eczema, etc. in Chicago, followed in rapid succession.”
News of the miracle spread, and soon the rush to Mt. Clemens was underway. Proponents of the baths proclaimed the treatment's miraculous power to relieve the discomfort associated with skin problems, tired muscles and joints, and a number of other ailments. Postcards of the times proudly showed the infirm emerging from the baths free of pain. Guest lists from Mt. Clemens’ luxury resort hotels remind us that this resort town was once a mecca for many affluent and famous personalities.
Tourists flocked to Michigan’s vacationlands in the late 19th century, and the Bay View Association launched resort life in northern Michigan, reconfiguring (and re-imagining) a stretch of coastline from a space of natural exploitation to one of restoring physical and emotional health. The Association’s leaders situated Bay View outside of Petoskey in an environment perceived as clean and comforting and able to foster spiritual renewal (Burd MHR, 39-40). The shores of northern Lake Michigan represented a location of complete restoration for the members of the Bay View Association.
Discovered in 1869, the St. Louis springs were hailed as miraculous, healing waters. The curative powers of the waters had spread in just two months. Soon after its discovery, the mineral springs in St. Louis took the mickname “The Saratoga of the West.” The springs catapulted the town into national news. Word of the healing water spread so rapidly that St. Louis was soon flooded with wealthy and famous people from all over the nation. As a result, luxurious hotels, renowned opera houses, and a variety of businesses were established to accommodate the travelers visiting the springs.
In April of 1870, the St. Louis newspaper correspondent wrote: “The village is now as it has been all winter full of invalids from all ports of the country, and every day we witness some remarkable cures effected by this strange water.” In 1881, J. A. Cassidy wrote that the springs contained “Healing gift of nature’s God…Banishing disease and pain” (McMaken, 1). St. Louis was not alone in its discovery of a magnetic well. Mineral wells were being drilled across the state. At Alpena, the well was determined to have magnetic qualities and was touted as a sure rival of the St. Louis well. Within two years, wells were found in Eaton Rapids, Spring Lake, Fruitport, Owosso, Hubbardston, Grand Ledge, and Midland. Most did not claim to be magnetic, but all claimed medicinal qualities for their water.
Advertisements, and the tourists who were influenced by them, helped to redefine Michigan’s northern landscapes. Railroad and steamship companies, attempting to fill an economic void left by deforested landscapes, responded by rebranding northern Michigan landscapes.
Both advertisers and tourists began to imagine that the act of heading north erased anxieties, boosted health, and provided opportunities to connect with what many believed to be a disappearing “primitive” landscape (Burd MHR, 32). Historically, many such resorts were developed at the location of natural hot springs or mineral springs; in the era before modern biochemical knowledge and pharmacotherapy, “taking the waters” was believed to have great medicinal powers.
In 2008, Michigan launched a rebranding of its tourism industry. The state centered on advertising Michigan’s forests, rivers, and lakes. This “Pure Michigan” campaign attempted to connect with the audience’s sense of nostalgia, a longing for tranquility, and the restorative potential of a communion with nature that was untouched, uninhabited, and idyllic (Burd MHR, 31). Today’s tourists simply wish to “head north.”
