Schools are beginning to get out, and summer is just around the corner. A couple of weeks ago, I came across an oil painting on eBay that filled my mind with memories of summers of 25 years ago. The painting was titled “Eroded gullies at Allison’s Wells” and had probably been painted in the 1950s. It was painted by Joseph M. Howorth, a Greenville lawyer who was also a member of the Allison’s Wells Art Colony. I quickly purchased it.

Allison’s Wells was located at Way, nine miles north of Canton, and it was one of Mississippi’s grand old summer resorts. It was built in 1879, and until it was lost to a fire in 1963, the Fontaine family maintained its tradition as a first-class old-time resort. The popularity of resorts and spas mushroomed in the 1870s with the advent of improved rail service. Most of the mid-1800s resorts blossomed near railroads so that travel there could be relatively easy and not too lengthy. That was the case with Allison’s Wells at Way. In 1879, a shallow well dug about a mile from the small Illinois Central Railroad depot at Way produced an ice cold medicinal mineral water. At the site a “health spa” to be known as Allison’s Wells was soon built.

Entertainment there in its early days included cock fighting and gambling. By the early 1900s though, the resort had become more health and family oriented. A 1914 advertisement in The Columbus Dispatch claimed that water from Allison’s Wells could treat everything from malaria to eczema. Five-gallon jugs of its water were shipped all over the country. The water there was noted not only for its healthy properties but because mixing Bourbon with it would cause it to turn black.

Allison’s Wells was also noted as a center of social life and was the scene of many parties, weddings and other events. Newspapers from the 1890s through the 1920s are filled with reports of people traveling to Allison’s for stays ranging from a few days to a couple of months. Advertisements were run in papers across mid-America both by the resort itself and by the Illinois Central Railroad. The New Orleans Times-Picayune in 1921 advertised ICRR rates from New Orleans to Allison’s Wells as $8.65. It was $26 to St. Louis and $33 to Chicago.

A 1921 description of Allison’s Wells from the Grenada Sentinel said it is “an ideal place to commune with nature and to forget for a short while the turmoil and rush of a busy world.” Allison’s Wells was described by F. Wenderoth Saunders in the November 1953 issue of Lincoln-Mercury Times as: “A hotel, a resort, an inn, a spa, home, grandma’s house, a weekend at a wealthy friend’s – it combines the best of all of these.”

I recall my father telling me of the time he was there. It was in the 1950s, and he and my mother were traveling with friends and decided to stop there for dinner. When they went in, my father was immediately informed that he could not be seated for dinner unless properly attired with coat and tie. When my father replied he did not have one with him and turned to leave, he was quickly told “but don’t worry we have a closet full of coats and ties where you may select one for the evening.” It was a resort from a different time and age.

While having breakfast recently at J. Broussard’s with Robert Ivy, he recalled Allison’s Wells. “I went there with my parents when my mother owned the Ivy Shop in the early 1950s. Ralph Hudson was a good friend of theirs, as were Dr. Summer and Dr. Stringer. (They taught art at MUW and were members of the Allison’s Wells Art Colony.) Mom had many Mississippi artists she showed at the Ivy Shop. I remember (at Allison’s Wells) the dining room, sleeping rooms without solid doors to circulate air, and a swimming pool that was more like a big tank filled with leaves.”

Robert’s description of the pool makes perfect sense for when I was there during summers at camp Bratton Green, the site where the pool had once been was surrounded by huge ancient oak trees.

In 1948, the Allison Art Colony was established by the Fontaines with artists Karl and Mildred Wolfe of Jackson. Until the hotel burned, artists, teachers and art students from across the country gathered there for workshops taught by nationally known artists. One of the early moving forces in the art colony was Ralph Hudson of Mississippi State College for Women (now Mississippi University for Women). For about 12 years, students from the art department at The W attended Allison’s Art Colony weekends under faculty members Mary Evelyn Stringer, Eugenia Summer and Ralph Hudson.

The art colony’s beginnings were described by Hosford Latimer Fontaine in “Allison’s Wells, The Last Mississippi Spa:” “The birth of The Allison Art Colony was in 1948 when Leigh Latimer was walking in the rose garden with John and Hosford Fontaine and Mildred and Karl Wolf, and Leigh exclaimed ‘Wouldn’t this be a grand place for an art colony.’” So began the Allison Art Colony, which within a few years under the leadership of noted Jackson artist Karl Wolfe, gained a national reputation and included faculty and students from colleges across the south. In 1949 it was the subject of a Sunday feature in the New York Times.

The contribution of The W instructors to the art colony was more than just teaching. Stringer and Summer served as mentors to the students and often contributed paintings to colony fund raisers. Mrs. Fontaine wrote that Hudson, Stringer, Summer and the students who came with them “brought freshness and gaiety” to the colony.

Across Way Road from Allison’s was the Mississippi Episcopal Diocese’s Camp Bratton-Green. It too had deep Columbus ties. Camp Bratton-Green as it exists today was the 1946 idea of the Rev. Cecil Jones, the long-time rector of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Columbus. Columbus engineer and architect W.B. Pearson was called on to develop plans, design facilities and expedite construction of the camp. Rev. Jones organized work crews to begin cleaning the campsite. Probably the first volunteer crew to arrive was composed of Bond Anderson, Bam Williams, Dan Williams and Louis Thelgie from Columbus. Many of the camp’s first staff were also from Columbus. Mrs. W.G. Hairston was the first dietitian, and the kitchen/cooking staff from MSCW was hired for the summer.

For more than 20 years, I served each summer on the camp’s adult staff at fifth- and sixth-grade sessions. We had activities and games on both the camp side of the road and the old Allison’s Wells side. The Allison’s side always fascinated me with its hidden treasures from long ago and its deep and mysterious gullies. For many years the gullies were a favorite place for Bratton-Green campers to play capture the flag and other games. Often, picnics were held at the top of them, and there were hayrides on a field road that went around them. Beside the gullies was a stand of pine trees with a checkerboard of fire lanes cut through them creating a maze. It was another favorite spot for capture the flag. The field road by the gullies was always lined with ripe blackberries in June. The gullies were a special place filled with wonderful memories. Memories brought to life by the painting I bought.

Rufus Ward is a Columbus native a local historian. E-mail your questions about local history to Rufus at [email protected].