Ramsey Springs

The 57.7-acre Ramsey Springs property is located in eastern Stone County on Highway 15. The property is bordered on the north and west by DeSoto National Forest and the State of Mississippi’s Red Creek Wildlife Management Area. It was purchased by the Land Trust in 2010, and soon thereafter was conveyed to the State of Mississippi. However, an agreement was arranged to allow the Land Trust to do some work on the property, to improve public access and preserve and celebrate the history of the property.

History

The Native Americans tell a story about two brothers, Chahta and Chikasa, who migrated with their people from the west. The brothers each had a sacred pole with them and they planted them in the ground at the end of each day’s journey. The next morning, the direction the pole leaned told them the path they should travel that day. When they crossed the Mississippi River, Chahta’s pole stood straight, so the Choctaw people knew they had found their new homeland. They settled in what would become modern-day Mississippi. Chikasa and his people (the Chickasaw) continued on to settle on the lands around the Tombigbee River in present-day Alabama.

Native peoples often settled on lands where two rivers join to ensure a constant supply of fresh water and game animals, and to take advantage of periodic flooding which replenished the soil and made crops more plentiful. Choctaw homes were rectangular or circular pole structures with walls made by weaving saplings and cane around the poles, often covered with clay or mud. Roofs were covered with thatch with a small hole to allow smoke from the cooking fire to escape. Low benches used for sleeping or storage lined the outer walls.

Mississippi was opened to settlement in 1798 when Congress organized the Mississippi Territory (which included Alabama until 1819) although the area around Ramsey Springs was part of Spanish West Florida until 1812. However, few settlers lived in Mississippi initially, and those who did were located primarily in Natchez or around Mobile. Outside of those areas, the territory was populated only by Choctaw and Chickasaw tribes. However, as economic conditions caused the Great Migration, during which massive numbers of Americans moved westward in search of fertile soils and forests of timber, “Mississippi Fever” began. Thousands of people headed for the region by any means possible, including by horse, wagon, boat, and foot!

By 1820, the population in Mississippi included 42,176 white settlers and 33,272 enslaved persons. William and Elizabeth Ramsey’s family were some of the white settlers who made the south side of Red Creek home in 1820. “Immediately on this bluff running back from the Creek was as excellent spring of as fine water as run out of the earth,” wrote Abiezer Clark Ramsey (1807-1891) in The Autobiography of A.C. Ramsey. By 1826, the Ramsey family had built a schoolhouse/church and established camp meeting grounds on the property.

Meanwhile, the Native Americans were being forced off the land altogether. By 1831, the Choctaw became the first Indian nation in the country to be wholly removed from their land.

Camp meetings were a summer tradition for settlers, where groups would gather in an open-air setting for preaching, Bible studies and meetings. Families arrived in horse- or oxen-drawn wagons after the crops were harvested and would pitch tents for a week or so to spend time with each other and a circuit-riding preacher. Gathering at a river was preferred for both fresh water access and baptisms. Each family brought their own cows and chickens for food, cooked on portable wood stoves, and buckets for carrying water. These camp meetings offered community, singing and dancing, and a diversion from work.

The early guests at the Ramsey Springs camp pitched tents and at night, torches and bonfires flared around the grounds. Visitors who came for the preaching at Ramsey Springs returned home with stories of the beauty of the site and its health-giving springs. Former Confederate soldier Abner Walker found relief from stomach ulcers by drinking from the spring in 1864; he subsequently moved to Biloxi and touted the healing properties of the spring. The waters were analyzed in 1886, and medicinal properties were listed for everything from skin disorders, blood and bowel diseases to liver and kidney complaints.

The early campgrounds led to the development of permanent lodgings. In 1897, the Ramsey family opened a new hotel with rates at 75 cents per day, four dollars per week, or fifteen dollars per month. At night, bands played and there was dancing on the rooftop, under the stars.

The new lodge hosted many activities. Many people took up rods and guns to fish and hunt for game of different kinds such as bear, panthers and other wild cats, wolves, and foxes. There were also deer, squirrel, and rabbits for the cooking pot along with ducks, geese, and turkey. People also swam in the lake, paddled in Red Creek and brought picnics to the sandbars.

“The water at the springs is ice cold and after getting in you do not want to come out. The bath is so refreshing that one can’t refrain from indulging many times a day. The picking and canning of berries of all kinds which abound in the adjacent woods affords a pleasant diversion for the women, several miniature canning factories being in evidence, and Heinz or any other professional preserver would be ashamed of his product if introduced to some blackberry jam formulated by the women.” (Daily Herald, June 24, 1913)

Roads to the springs in the early days of the resort were primitive. Gravel, dirt, and shell roads often washed out, and turned the 25-mile trip from Biloxi into an adventure filled with sudden drops, washouts, and a lot of bouncing over the ruts. Ferries across streams were interrupted by frequent deluges and swift-running water, making access difficult. Andrew Ramsey wrote in 1897, “The cheapest and best way for parties to come out to them from the coast is by their own conveyances. I will board their stock at cost (25 cents/day per head of stock).”

Development on the property reached its peak with the opening of the Mr. and Mrs. George Miller’s Ramsey Springs Hotel on May 12, 1923. The well-known hotel promised: “a constant flow of travel to this section during all the seasons of the year, and this means money turned loose that will find its way to many pockets.” The 35-room hotel and 12 cottages were constructed of rustic split logs and every room had hot and cold running water from the springs. The hotel had gnarled timbers and cypress ceilings, and was decorated with fat pinecones, vines, deer heads, hornets’ nests, taxidermy specimens from the local forest, and a great cobblestone fireplace. Generous porches invited breezes from across the pond. A swimming pool was fed from the spring, and had exceptionally cold water.

The food at the Hotel was renowned – fried chicken, spare ribs, cakes and pies. Sunday roast was a favorite tradition. An advertisement from 1925 described, “fried chicken with cream potatoe [sic] salad, vegetables, egg-cornbread and huckleberry pie dessert” for the sum of $1. It was good, old-fashioned home-cooked food.

The first automobile in Mississippi had arrived in Biloxi on June 26, 1900 and by 1913, there were a million automobiles in the U.S. The old roadways were modernized, cleared and graded for automobiles. New bridges at Cedar Lake and Hurricane Creek shortened the trip between Biloxi and Ramsey Springs by 12 miles and eliminated the need for the Lamey Ferry over the Tchoutacabouffa River. A trip that had taken many hours at the turn of the century could be made in less than an hour by 1932.

The rumored benefits of the spring water continued to be a draw for visitors. An advertisement placed in 1937 in The Enterprise, a Stone County newspaper, stated “Many medical doctors and scientists believe water from the springs passes through strata containing radium.” At the time, radium was considered to be a miracle substance — it glowed in the dark and salesmen promised it could extend people’s lives, increase their vigor, and make women more beautiful. Doctors used it to treat everything from colds to cancer and encouraged people to drink and bathe in the water. However, modern science has found that exposure to radium may result in an increased risk of some types of cancer, anemia, cataracts, broken teeth, and reduced bone growth, so drinking the water from Ramsey Springs is no longer recommended!

The hotel was demolished in 1961, a victim of changing tastes and increasing maintenance costs. Today, the brick walls of the former laundry building, some stairs and a heart-shaped pond are nearly all that remain of the Ramsey Springs Hotel. The property has been returned to a more natural state. A trail system has been established that leads visitors to the site of the former swimming pool and the famed spring. A boat launch and small parking area provides the public with access to Red Creek and interpretive signs have been installed to inform the public about the interesting history of the property.

The Land Trust is grateful to the Mississippi Department of Marine Resources, The Mississippi Coast National Heritage Area, the Department of Interior and the National Parks Service for funding that made research into the history of this property, trail improvements and signage possible.