This unusual "boom" came about quite accidentally. A salt well driller employed by Col. Edwin L. Drake (of Titusville fame) discovered oil in Titusville in 1859, causing an epidemic of "black gold fever" among the creek valley residents.

One of these local oil seekers was Dr. John H. Gray, who owned a large farm along French Creek. One day in early 1860, as he was walking along the banks of French Creek carrying a metal probing rod, he stopped to "lean and contemplate." When he did so, the rod quickly sank into the earth, nearly throwing him to the ground. Thinking he was close to a discovery of oil, a jet of crystal spring water spurt forth instead .

The doctor then forced an old gun barrel (then a penstock) into the opening and the water flowed freely for the next 15 years. Although Dr. Gray was not too excited about this "water discovery," it was soon rumored around town that the men who worked on Gray's Farm and other farms along the creek drank from the penstock and "never got sick."

In 1884 Dr. Gray took a patient to Hot Springs,Arkansas. There he supervised treatment at Blue Sulphur Springs and was struck by the similarity of its water and that which he had tapped along French Creek.

Once home he went prospecting again and made more openings in the valley soil. He discovered four more jets of the same "charged" spring water and for years after the valley of French Creek was known as "Fountain Valley."

To test the water for medicinal purposes, Dr. Gray began treating cases of dyspepsia and kidney and liver complaints and found, to quote an old Riverside Inn brochure, that the "waters, unassisted, affected many cures."

Determined to give the world the benefit of the water's healing powers, Dr. Gray erected a spring house and began selling mineral water at a "nominal price."

THE FIRST "HEALTH SPA"

The Riverside Inn and Hotel was perhaps the first health spa of its kind. Therapeutic installations included all kinds of baths - Russian, Turkish, cabinet, electrical, seasalt, mineral, and needle.

A Vibratory for electrical treatments and X-ray machine were available as well. A licensed physician supervised these operations; one of them Dr. G.E. Humphrey, pointed out" while guests can have expert electrical treatment if they wish, there is nothing at all at the Riverside to remind one of the unpleasant features of a sanitarium."

Plans to build Riverside Hotel, as it was first named, were conceived by W.D. Rider and his associates in 1884. Rider sold the hotel to the William Baird family in 1895. At the same time the Bairds also purchased Grays Mineral Springhouse and surrounding acreage.

Under the nearly 50 years of ownership by the Bairds, the Inn flourished and developed into a complete resort. The son, William Baird, Jr., succeeded the father in management in 1910. The Bairds put in a 9-hole golf course on their property in 1915, then expanded it to an 18-hole course in 1923. The hotel and golf course remained under one ownership until 1974. They are now separately owned.

The Mineral Water era peaked about 1905, but the Riverside Inn still flourished. Of the 40 hotels and rooming houses in the area, only the Riverside has continuously operated as a successful Inn within the community.