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Teddy Roosevelt is said to have insisted on drinking it; Joan Crawford reportedly bathed in it and Alice Cooper favored it for his pet boa constrictor. Almost since its discovery and subsequent commercial development by European settlers in the late 1700s, the waters of Poland Spring have quenched the thirst of celebrities, royalty, politicians, industrialists and plenty of common folk.
Poland Spring is one of many premium bottled waters on grocery store shelves. But in a tiny Maine town in the foothills of the White Mountains, the real Poland Spring still trickles. The spring house, simply labeled "The Source," is adjacent to the 1906 bottling plant, now a museum of local and company history. A modern bottling facility that produces the bottles you find on your grocery shelves is located a few miles away.
The spring house, along with the bottling plant and several other buildings on the National Register of Historic Places, are part of the Poland Spring Preservation Park. Here you can sit in the marble walled spring house, imagining white gloved workers serving up icy spring water from silver ladles, tour the historic bottling plant featuring carrara glass walls and ceilings -- even in the bathrooms -- and get a feel for the grandeur of America's resort era.
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From 1797, when the first modest Inn at Poland Spring was built, this land was much more than just a source of clear spring water. In 1793, Jabez Ricker traded land in southern Maine to the Alfred Shaker community in exchange for 300 acres that would become Ricker Hill in Poland. Thus began a business relationship between the Ricker Family and the Shakers that would last for a century and a half.
A tiny village was instantly created when Ricker moved with his wife and ten children to Poland in 1794. Three years later, his sons built and opened the first inn.
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It was Ricker's grandson, Hiram Ricker, that transformed Poland Spring to a resort and who saw the commercial potential in the waters of Poland Spring. A mid-1800s marketing genius, Hiram touted the purity and restorative powers of the spring water. After all, he attributed the minerals in Poland Spring water to his own cure from dyspepsia.
The first bottling (barrel) plant was built in 1845. Workers at the nearby Shaker Village at Sabbathday Lake provided wooden barrels and later crates for the water, and the commercial sales of bottled Poland Spring water began.
In 1876, the elaborate Poland Spring House opened to accommodate 450 guests. The imposing edifice was landmark for many miles around until it was destroyed by fire in 1975.
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The Rickers pitched the resort's high altitude, natural beauty, and its connection with the Poland Spring water. In an advertisement in a local newspaper in 1860, Hiram Ricker vouched for the water's ability to cure stomach, liver and kidney ailments and well as to purify blood. Historical accounts show that Ricker's strategy worked. Guests arrived by train and then coach to enjoy a month or two of mountain air and mineral water.
From 1876 through 1935, the health spa and resort entertained guests from all over the world. But by the 1940s, grand resorts such as Poland Spring lost favor with Americans and years of decline began. In 1975, the now dilapidated inn was destroyed by fire. A year later, the Poland Spring Preservation Society was formed to restore and preserve the architectural treasures of the area.
Today the more modest Poland Spring Inns offer a taste of the grand resort age with accommodations, golf, grass tennis courts, hiking trails, a private trout pond, entertainment and meals. On a clear day, from the vista of Ricker Hill, visitors can still see the White Mountains and the Atlantic Ocean. And they can drink water from "The Source."
The Preservation Park offers miles of scenic natural trails for hiking and biking in the warmer months and cross-country skiing and snow shoeing in the winter. Four buildings on the National Register of Historic Places are open for tours. The Spring & Bottling Houses are now museums of science displays and bottling memorabilia. The Maine State Building, an octagonal mansion purchased and moved to Poland Spring by the Ricker family in 1894, was the Maine state pavilion at the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago. The non-denominational All Souls Chapel, built in 1912, is home to the Poland Spring Preservation Society's summer concert series, and is still used for weddings, christenings and other ceremonies.
Getting there: Poland Spring Preservation Park is located on Route 122 (off of Route 26) in southwestern Maine. The park museums are open Tuesday through Sunday from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. excluding major holidays. Travel directions and more information may be found at the park's web site: www.polandspring.com, or by calling 207-998-7143.
Also in the area: The Sabbathday Shaker Village.
