![]() Indiana Landmarks offers two-hour historic hotel tours of both properties throughout the year, and limited behind-the-scenes and twilight tours, ranging in price from $15 to $50. “And that it’s still standing 120 years later.” The hotel’s grand reopening was on April 16, 1903.Īny historic tour of the area in Orange County, about 50 miles south of Bloomington, should include the West Baden Springs Hotel and its elegant sister property, French Lick Springs Hotel, a little more than a mile down State Road 56. “One of the amazing things is that the West Baden Springs Hotel was built in less than one year, which is pretty shocking,” says Jeff Lane, French Lick/West Baden Resort historian and archivist. Today, more than 120 years after it was built, it seems that name was not hyperbole. ![]() When it didn’t, newspaper reporters declared it the eighth architectural wonder of the world. In 1902, when the supports holding the new dome were removed, the media waited outside, sure it would immediately collapse. A fire destroyed the previous hotel in June 1901, and owner Lee Sinclair wanted a new, grander structure to take its place. ![]() That first glimpse of West Baden Springs Hotel never fails to amaze, with its commanding 200-foot-diameter, 160-foot-high dome. When the West Baden Springs Hotel was built in 1902, it was called the eighth architectural wonder of the world. ![]()
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