Mr. Fish informed me that the waters of Excelsior Springs resemble, in their general effect, the waters of Homburg, the favorite watering place of the late King Edward--or, rather, I think he put it the other way round: that Homburg waters resembled those of Excelsior Springs. The famous Elizabethbrunnen of Homburg is like a combination of two waters found at the Missouri resort--a saline water and an iron water, having, together, a laxative, alterative, and tonic effect. Mr. Fish, who has made a study of waters, says that Excelsior Springs has the greatest variety of valuable mineral waters to be found in this country, and that the town possesses two among the half dozen iron-manganese springs being used, commercially, in the entire world. Duplicates of these springs are to be found at Schwalbach and Pyrmont, in Germany; Spa, in Belgium, and St. Moritz, in Switzerland. The value of manganese when associated with iron is that it makes the iron more digestible.
Another type of water found at the Springs is of a saline-sulphur variety, such as is found at Saratoga, Blue Lick (Ky.), Ems, and Baden-Baden. Still another type is the soda water similar to that of Manitou (Colo.), Vichy, and Carlsbad, while a fourth variety of water is the lithia.
In 1881 the present site of the town was occupied by farms, one of them that of Anthony Wyman, on whose land the original "Siloam" iron spring was discovered. This spring, the water of which left a yellow streak on the ground as it flowed away, had been known for years among the negro farm hands as the "old pizen spring," and it is said that when they were threshing wheat in the fields, and became thirsty, none of them dared drink from it.
Rev. Dr. Flack, a resident of the neighborhood, having heard about the spring, took a sample of the water and sent it to be analyzed--as my informant put it, "to find out what was the matter with it." The analysis showed the reason for the yellow streak, and informed Dr. Flack of the spring's value.
From that time on people began to drive to the Springs in the stagecoaches that passed through the region. First there were camps, but in 1882 a few houses were built and the town was incorporated. In 1888 the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railroad began to operate a line through Excelsior Springs, and in 1894 the Wabash connected with the Springs by constructing a spur line. The Milwaukee & St. Paul tracks pass at a distance of about one mile from the town, and this fact finally caused the late Sam F. Scott to build a dummy line to the station.
