{"nrhp_refnum":"76001299","name":"Thompson's Bromine and Arsenic Springs","other_names":["Healing Springs"],"category":"district","location":{"address":"W of Crumpler on SR 1542","address_restricted":false,"city":"Crumpler","county":"Ashe County","state":"NC","lat":36.50247750400007,"lon":-81.39555799399994,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1976-10-22","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Historic - Non-Aboriginal","Entertainment/Recreation"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A mineral springs resort complex near Crumpler, Ashe County, North Carolina, along SR 1542. It includes a ca. 1900 octagonal spring house, a bath house, frame cabins from about 1900 to 1930, and the archaeological site of a 1887 hotel that burned in 1962.","why_significant":"The nomination presents the springs as a good representative of the mineral spring resorts that served as health and social centers in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, of which few survive. The burned hotel site is especially significant archaeologically because the contents burned and collapsed in place and the site has not been disturbed since the 1962 fire. It could yield information about how a specialized spa hotel operated.","narrative":"Thompson's Bromine and Arsenic Springs is a former mineral springs resort in a small stream valley near Crumpler, in Ashe County. Tradition holds that Willie Barker found the springs in 1885. Captain H. V. Thompson of Virginia then developed them, advertising the water as a cure and bottling it for shipment by wagon to a railroad station about 35 miles away. A two-story frame hotel was built in 1887. Around it grew an octagonal spring house built about 1900, a bath house, and rows of frame cabins added through about 1930. The hotel operated until it burned in about an hour in 1962. Its contents were lost in place, and the site has not been disturbed since. Listing recognizes the complex as a surviving example of the mineral spring resorts that served as health retreats and social gathering places, and it highlights the hotel ruins as a rare, undisturbed archaeological record.","period_of_significance":"1800-1899 and 1900-1999 (specific dates ca. 1887, ca. 1900, ca. 1920)","architect_builder":null,"architectural_style":null,"criteria":[],"status_note":"The hotel burned to the ground in 1962 and the site is undisturbed; the spring house, bath house and cabins remain, and the form marks the property as unoccupied.","vacant_flag":true,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:58:57.482745-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/42/7189/47718942/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_NC/76001299.pdf"},"photo":null,"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/47718942","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thompson%27s_Bromine_and_Arsenic_Springs","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q18158792"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/north-carolina/ashe-county/thompsons-bromine-and-arsenic-springs-76001299/"}