DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker at Dellwood Park tells it — and it's a story worth telling slow. Before 1830, long before anyone was calling this corner of Titus County anything at all, the Caddo Indians had campgrounds right here, drawn by something genuinely strange and genuinely beautiful — mineral springs flowing red, white, and blue waters. You heard that right.
Three colors of water, rising out of the earth. Whatever those springs said to the people who found them first, it was enough to keep them coming back. Then came the 1830s, and a man named Benjamin Gooch built the first home at what would become Mount Pleasant, right here on this same ground.
The springs didn't go quiet just because the settlers arrived. If anything, word started to spread. By 1895, this place had become a full-on health and recreational resort — folks traveling in to take the waters, as people used to say with great seriousness about mineral springs they believed could fix just about anything.
And then somebody decided to think bigger. The Red Mineral Springs Development Co., headed by a Dr. T.
M. Fleming, put up the Dellwood Hotel, and by all accounts it was lavish — standing here from 1909 to 1916. Political men gathered here for Confederate conventions and rallies.
Decisions got made, speeches got delivered, deals got struck in the long shadow of that hotel. And then it burned. Now, those steps you're looking at — those steps right there — those are from the Dellwood Hotel.
The hotel is gone, but the steps remain, which is the kind of thing that'll make you stop and think if you let it. The city of Mount Pleasant acquired the site in 1951 and made it Dellwood Park. The springs still flow.
The steps still stand. Some places just refuse to be forgotten.
What the marker says
Before 1830, Caddo Indians had campgrounds here around mineral springs flowing red, white, and blue waters. First home at future Mount Pleasant was built here in 1830s by Benjamin Gooch. A health-recreational resort by 1895, springs area was site (1909-16) of the lavish Dellwood Hotel, built by the Red Mineral Springs Development Co., headed by Dr. T. M. Fleming. These steps are from Dellwood Hotel, which burned. Favorite spot for Confederate conventions, political rallies, and other meetings, the site was acquired 1951 by city of Mount Pleasant, as Dellwood Park.