DALBY SPRINGS. Dalby Springs is the collective name for what was originally four springs about 11½ miles south of DeKalb in southwestern Bowie County (at 33°22' N, 94°41' W). Archeological evidence indicates that the springs were used by prehistoric peoples for thousands of years. In 1687 the French explorer Henri Joutel^qv found the Upper Natchitoches tribe of Caddo Indians living at the springs. Anglo settlement there began in 1839, when Warren Dalby and his family moved to the area. In the 1850s the springs began to be known for their medicinal value, and by the time of the Civil War^qv a community, known as Dalby Springs, had grown up around them. During the 1870s an observer reported that there were frequently as many as fifty to seventy-five people there to drink the springwater. The same observer claimed that this water was "good for dyspepsia, diseases of the skin and kidneys and also for diseases of females. It is a sovereign remedy for barrenness. If Abraham and Sarah had visited this spring Isaac would have figured fifty years earlier in Biblical history." Although the springs still flowed weakly in the 1980s, by that time several pitcher-pump wells were in use to obtain the water. A state historical marker is located at the church that stands south of the springs.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Gunnar Brune, Springs of Texas, Vol. 1 (Fort Worth: Branch-Smith, 1981).

Gunnar Brune