Y. Hope Osborn
Little Rock, AR
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MessageCollection: Chewaukla Mineral Company Bottling Factory
The cold spring water below the site of the bottling factory of Chewaukla Mineral Co. (later the Sleepy Hollow Water Co.) outside Hot Springs (Garland County) became a national sensation with backers from Chicago and an “expert” touting its “radioactive medicinal value.” Guy Lombardo and his Royal Canadians wrote, sung, and orchestrated a song dedicated to this “Sleepy Water of Hot Springs, Arkansas.” Radio programs and papers such as the Chicago Tribune lauded testimonials of what the water had cured and could cure.
In a 1986 publication, Bill Dever recorded a legend from a commercial brochure for the Chewaukla Springs “bottling plant,” writing, “One such spring, as legend has it, was named after an Indian princess, whose father, the chief, came to the area to utilize the waters and for recuperation.” The name “Chewaukla” was, in this legend, said to mean “sleepy water” and was given to the springs “since the drinking water gives the restful and relaxed feeling that a deep sleep gives a person.” However, though the Chewaukla Springs Mineral Co. used the legend and the logo for their marketing pamphlets, the Quapaw, Choctaw, and Osage Nations neither recognize the legend nor the word Chewaukla or the fact that Native Americans did more than trade in the area that became Hot Springs.
One of the earliest records uncovered for the company—1913 Mineral Resources of the United States—reports sales for Chewaukla Spring. The geological survey reported that total sales had “increased from 1,032,032 gallons, valued at $132, 257 in 1912 to 1,428,869 gallons, valued at $151,412 in 1913, an increase of 2 per cent [sic] in quantity and 15 per cent [sic] in value. The average price per gallon rose from 10 to 11 cents.” There is little information on the early history of the company.
The Garland County clerk’s office dates the incorporation of Chewaukla Mineral Spring Co. to February 8, 1938, with it being renamed the Sleepy Hollow Water Co. on July 8, 1959. However, a Broadcast Advertising booklet dated November 1931 lists Chewaukla Mineral Springs as preferring WMAQ for advertising, and other evidence points to a founding of the company even earlier.
Unlike many of the springs of Hot Springs, Chewaukla Spring is a cold-water spring. It remains under the site of what became the Chewaukla Mineral Springs Co bottling factory. This old bottling factory is located on Sleepy Valley Road off of Highway 7 South just north of Hot Springs proper and within Hot Springs National Park. Today, Chewaukla Bottling Factory is not marked by sign, path, or map. It deteriorated and burned into shells of blackened gold and red brick and brackish mire of leaves. In the summer a camouflage of tree leaves further hides the site.
The company was a source of mineral water for people as far away as Chicago, Illinois. For example, the April 14, 1931, issue of the Chicago Tribune included an advertisement in which the “Sleepy Water” was described as “to be had from only one Source pair of twin springs in the Arkansas hills. Peculiar natural forces here inject tertian mineral combinations which are not to be found in any other water. These natural alkalines neutralize, and absorb the acid poisons and body wastes which so often cause and aggravate diabetes.” In addition, the water was said to help those who suffered from “rheumatism, high blood pressure, arthritis,” and numerous other ailments, given its power “to drive out poisons and purify blood.” Another advertisement in the September 3, 1927, Reform Advocate, a Jewish publication from Chicago, featured a claim, signed by one Dr. Robert Unzicker of the Physicians’ Diagnostic Laboratory, that the water from Chewaukla Springs was highly radioactive, showing “five times more Radium reaction than the other waters analyzed by me.”
In the early twentieth century, radium was in or touted to be in toothpaste, cosmetics, butter, and a good deal of other household products. Before radioactivity was understood as potentially dangerous, radium was thought to be life-giving and therapeutic. Surgeon General Dr. George H. Tourney, believing in radioactivity’s curative properties (circa 1910), had written, “Relief may be reasonably expected at the Hot Springs in… various forms of gout and rheumatism, neuralgia; metallic or malarial poisoning, chronic Brights disease, gastric dyspepsia, chronic diarrhea, chronic skin lesions, etc.” However, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Radium Historical Items Catalog 2008 includes a glass bottle that once held the “Sleepy Water” cure and lists the bottle manufactured by Chewaukla Mineral Springs Co. under the product category of “Quack” cures, stating, “There were probably no actual radioactive materials, advertised more based on the mineral contents than the radioactive assets, but the fact it comes from a radioactive spring is still noted in the brochures.” This glass bottle reportedly dated to the 1910s.
Chewaukla Mineral Springs Co did not only capitalize on advertising in papers. They used their Chicago-based radio program and a song written and played by Guy Lombardo and His Royal Canadians orchestra. The orchestra dedicated the song, “Sweet Chewaukla, The Land of Sleepy Water,” first published by Irving Berlin, Inc. of New York in 1929, “to the famous Sleepy Water, Hot Springs, Ark.” Guy Lombardo and His Royal Canadians were famous for performing at the inaugural balls of U.S. presidents, making “Auld Lang Syne” popular for the American New Year’s Eve, and writing over 100 albums, including music for movies such as The Thin Man, Many Happy Returns, and Winter Wonderland.
The Hot Springs building remained open for decades. It has been all but erased from the landscape by abandonment, deterioration, fire, and green growth. There is not any marker, path, or drive for the Chewaukla Springs Mineral Company mineral springs bottling factory despite its colorful history.
Final Revision for Encyclopedia of Arkansas article with photography is forthcoming.
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