Bellbrook, Ohio: The Little Town that Could

If it hadn't been destroyed by fire, a two-story Magnetic Springs Hotel in Bellbrook might still be a haven for the rich and famous and those who seek a remedy for their physical ailments. This is only one fascinating fact about this small town located five miles southeast of Dayton, Ohio.

Around 1883, a builder name Andrew Byrd was re-modeling a church in Bellbrook. The tools he had been using were placed in water overnight. The next morning the tools had become magnetized, picking up nails and other bits of metal. Word got around town and some entrepreneurs built a magnificent hotel on the site of the well and advertised that drinking the water could cure almost everything including arthritis, kidney troubles and paralysis.

Hundreds of jugs of magnetized water from the well were filled every day to meet the needs of the dining room visitors who arrived by traction car, horse and buggy, and wheelchair. Invalids and those who wanted a longer visit were charged $2 a night and $10 a week for board and lodging. The boom was on for the Magnetic Springs Hotel in Bellbrook, Ohio.

Unfortunately, in 1896, a fire destroyed the hotel and the spring feeding the medicinal water. A new hotel, the Bellbrook Inn, with 30 rooms to hopefully accommodate the influx of more guests, was quickly built to re-place the original hotel. People pretended that the water was still magnetized until around 1903, when the hotel and the promise of magic became a financial disaster.

Town "know-it-alls" were heard to say..."half of it was in their imagination, anyway."

Publication has always been important to Bellbrook. At one time four newspapers existed. The most popular one was the Bellbrook Moon, printed around 1885. Morgan Fudge was the editor, who told his readers that the Moon gets full once a week and so does the editor. At another time he said that pipes smoked before the Civil War would not be tolerated in his office.

For more than 25 years, the Racing Pigeon Bulletin was published 50 times a year on Franklin Street in the middle of town and mailed to subscribers in the USA and more than 300 foreign countries.

Today, The Bellbrock Park in Bellbrook is the focal point for the town's activities especially the annual Maple Syrup Festival, begun in 1979. Every food sold at the many booths has maple syrup in it. The quantity and quality of the area's maple trees and the syrup they produce is well known. Barrels of it are sent to other cities.

Why Bellbrock Park in Bellbrook? A philanthropic woman, named Evelyn Brock Deger, gave the land where the original Magnetic Springs Hotel had stood, to the town to be used as a park. For this kind gesture, the town fathers honored her by naming the park, Bellbrock Park.

Bellbrook is not without its celebrity connection. Jonathan Winters, the comedian, a Dayton native, often visited his aunt who lived in the big white house on the hill. The Winters Library in Bellbrook is named for the Winters' family. Jonathan's grandfather was chief officer of the bank in Dayton, the Winters Bank.

In the front window of the library is a large Boston fern named "Grace" named for the woman who gave it to the library in the 1930s, when the plant was already decades old. It is still green and flourishing. Among the duties of the library staff is to make sure "Grace" stays that way.

Today, Bellbrook has a golf course, upscale homes, new schools, The magnetic springs are gone but the magic remains.