PIEDMONT SPRINGS. The Piedmont Springs in Grimes County were a popular resort and health spa as early as 1850. Three sulfur springs, varying in taste from mild to strong, were supplemented by numerous bathhouses and drinking establishments, and a grand four-story hotel with 100 rooms was built in 1860 and quickly became the social center for the area. Guests enjoyed billiards, poker, and horseraces, and Sam Houston was said to have once danced the minuet there. Around 1865 the hotel became a hospital and the headquarters of Gen. John George Walker's Texas Division (see WALKER'S TEXAS DIVISION). The post-Civil War economic decline caused the spa to close in the 1870s.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Grimes County Historical Commission, History of Grimes County, Land of Heritage and Progress (Dallas: Taylor, 1982). Marker Files, Texas Historical Commission, Austin.