An off-season (Winter?) picture of the Vichy Well Natatorium, once located in the 600 block of North Oak Avenue, where North Oak Community Center now [2008] stands is illustrated here. The picture is dated the time around 1900. The Vichy well featured a swimming pool, which it labelled a "Natatorium." Later improvements, when the name was changed to The Standard Well, included a motion-picture theater and a pavilion for dancing. (Note the Dr. A.W. Thompson residence and the Mineral Wells Sanitarium on the right skyline.) A USO was built on this location In World War II for white servicemen at Camp Wolters. The USO building was turned over to the city at the end of the war, and became known as the North Oak Community Center. Preservation efforts are underway [in 2008] to restore the Community Center.
This photograph appears to have been given to A. W. Weaver with the following information on the back of it: "Wasn't it Whittier who said 'Still stately stands the old school house, beside the babbling brook'?--well this one no longer stands. It was a firm & strong old building when they tore it down 4 years ago. I thought you would cherish this picture as a fond recollection of yours, mine & Hugh's school days & days of happy childhood, where, as we romped & played barefoot in the soft sands & green grass, we were not as yet familiar with the hidden stones & thorns that one encounters down the highway of life. "All the sheet metal contained in the top of this building including the tin roof was made & fabricated by Papa in Grandpa's store. The metal work consists of the ornamental cornice fittings, the steeples at each corner of the building, metal banisters on the roof top, pinnacles around cupolas, flag pole with large metal ball on top & all drain piping and roof ventilators. "The barren oak trees in the yard are very familiar. Far to the right, not shown in the picture were several mesquite trees, whose limbs were platted & tied in knots when they were saplings, by Grandpa Caylor. The trees grew in the fantastic shapes. All school boys were mystified at the strange shape of the trees and Grandpa was amused." The school was located at 205 Northwest 5th Avenue. It is both interesting and amazing how much of our history is not evident in the pictures that preserve such a vital part of it.
The West Ward School is shown with "Dinky Car" tracks in foreground. The picture was taken around 1909. The first Mineral Wells School with a graduating class, built in 1902, it was located just north of Little Rock School on NW 5th Avenue. Mineral Wells' first High School graduation class, consisted of four students in 1903, as evinced by a photograph in "Time Was...", page 189. It was later named "Houston School" in 1915. The West Ward School was subsequently torn down. Another school, constructed on SW 4th Avenue, was then named "Houston School."
This photograph illustrates a view from the east of the West Ward School at the time of its completion in 1902. It was located just north of Mineral Well's first public school, the "Little Rock School", at 205 NW 5th Avenue. West Ward housed first through twelfth grades. Mineral Well's first high school graduating class (four students) graduated from here in 1905. High School classes were moved from here to the East Ward School when it was completed in 1906. Only elementary school classes were taught here at the time West Ward school was torn down, about 1930. The Lilian Peek Cottage, Texas' first free-standing Home Economics building, was built by the W.P.A. in 1937 just to the north of where the West Ward School had been located.
This is a photograph of a building with a sign that says, "Famous Mineral Wells Crystal Plant." There is a hill, covered in trees, behind the building. Writing at the bottom of the image reads: "Where Famous Crystals Are Made." Ed Dismuke, a druggist from Waco, came to Mineral Wells for his health after his family physician told him he only had a "short time" to live. After miraculously regaining his health, which he credited to the mineral waters of his new hometown, he sold water by the drink at the Damron Hotel, later opening his own company, The Famous Water Company. He also opened The Famous Mineral Crystal Plant on the east side of Lake Pinto in partnership with local banker Cicero Smith. The two also organized The Mineral Wells Lakewood Park Scenic Railway with its two gasoline-powered "dinky cars" named "Esther" and "Susie" after Smith's daughters. This is a picture of the plant where Famous Crystals, labeled "Pronto Lax" were made. Dismuke had outlived the doctors who had told him he only had a short time to live when he died at the age of ninety-four.
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