The healing springs of western Virginia in the Allegheny Mountains have drawn people to its curative properties for ages. They sought relief for their afflictions, rheumatism, fevers, and agues. They would travel far for wellness.
The historic Andrew Johnston House in Pearisburg, Giles County, Virginia, features a doctor’s office adjacent to Main Street. This well-preserved and maintained outbuilding stood alongside an important roadway leading to the region’s noteworthy healing springs. Nineteenth-century people passed this way on their journey to Virginia’s mountains to “take the waters”. Those affluent members of the leisure class perhaps chin-wagged their way past the house. Invalids, less interested in idle pursuits, found succor in the doctor’s office. An advertisement in The Semi-Weekly Raleigh Register on 6 June 1857 tells that Pearisburg stood along the horse stage coach line to resorts at the Red Sulphur spring, the Salt Sulphur spring, and the White Sulphur springs. The Charleston Mercury of South Carolina alerted its readers on 14 July 1857 that the springs could be reached ever so easily by way of a branch line from the Virginia & Tennessee Railroad springs in nearby Christiansburg, Montgomery County.
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