The West Baden Springs Hotel still looks as impressive as it must have looked in 1902 – driving through the giant arches at the entrance down the manicured driveway past gardens, and of course, the large, domed hotel itself. It’s easy to get lost in this display, picking out all the tiny, hand-painted details that took a man named Peter Gorman over forty years to complete. The display is over 1100 Square Feet and depicts the Hagenbeck-Wallace Circus (a contemporary of the Ringling Brothers) with over 150,000 pieces, big top, circus performers, sideshow, and all. What does the world’s largest circus diorama entail? Well, a lot. In the museum, there are also displays featuring famous French Lick basketball player Larry Bird gambling the Monon Railroad connecting Chicago, Louisville, and French Lick and their biggest exhibit – the World’s Largest Circus Diorama. In 1901 a man named Tom Taggart bought the French Lick Springs Hotel and started bottling the local mineral laxative water, eventually naming it “Pluto Water” after the Roman God of the Underworld. William Augustus Bowles, a politician, physician and businessman turned grave robber (for science, of course), traitor, and eventual hotel builder – building the first French Lick Springs Hotel in the 1840s.

Once the French colonizers came through, they made the discovery that these bison were “licking” the minerals left from the Ice Age.Įventually, the town was founded by Dr. The museum details the entire history of the area, from when the Miami, Piankashaw, and Shawnee Tribes followed the Buffalo Trace, AKA the bison migration from Vincennes, Indiana to Clarksville, Indiana. As you walk up to the French Lick West Baden Museum, you see a 7-foot-tall golden statue of what seems to be the devil in the window, and you know, yes, this is going to be weird. In the middle of town stands a colorful museum in a little shopping center.

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