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The Healing Waters
It was the Choctaw belief in the healing waters that spread the fame of the artesian spring. From the Times-Picayune: "In 1852 Capt. Joseph St. Ange Bossier cut his way with a hatchet through the tangles underbrush to this spring. In 1854 he had the waters analyzed. In 1855 the springs were incorporated by an act of the Louisiana legislature. Since then the beautiful Abita or Startled Fawn has been somewhat known and visited by invalids." Francis Ann Bossier and Capt. Bossier along with their partner Col. William Christy are given credit for the early commercial development of the spring by providing cottages, and later the Bossier House Hotel to accommodate visitors. In 1887 the Poitevent and Favre Lumber Co. brought the East Louisiana passenger train to Abita Springs. In 1888 the Pavilion from the 1884 Worlds Industrial and Cotton Exposition was brought from New Orleans and placed over the famous spring. Those two actions brought the economic boom that would bring the commercialization of the spring water. The original spring located on the banks of the Abita River, where the Pavilion once stood, was the source of the Abita Springs Water Company's operation. The company captured the spring's water for purely commercial intent and was the second commercial enterprise. The first was the Abita Ice Manufacturing Company that opened for business in 1891. The exploitation of the celebrated spring on a large and prominent scale began with the Abita Springs Water Company.
The Legend of Princess Abita
This poem appeared in the St. Tammany Farmer newspaper on Sept. 24, 1881, penned by an author referred to as "Rehnle." The poem tells of the Indian Princess Abita who married a Spaniard from New Orleans called Henriquez. After becoming "civilized" by the ways of her new city, she would, over time, grow weary and listless. After unsuccessfully consulting western physicians, Henriquez eventually turned to a Choctaw medicine man who directed him to - in the words of the poem - the place... "Where bubbles up the fountain- the spring the Indians love,/ There the Great Spirit watcheth and smileth from above./ Leave there your bride, Henriquez, trust me and say goodbye/ Till one short moon has passed away, then to Abita hie." After the month had passed, Henriquez returned to find his Abita glowing with health and vitality. Rehnle then related for his Victorian-era readers the legend that shapes local lore today. In the poem, shouts came from "the forest": "'Great Spirit, Thou hast given back our Queen, beloved Abita.' The red men afterwards viewed the Spring with wondrous awe and pride./ And named it for the Indian girl, Henriquez's fond young bride./ Some hundred years have passed away, and still the same sweet scene--/ The same old cypress branches, the gray moss and the green./ Where should be placed a Temple, is but fond Nature's bower,/ And flowing calmly onward, the stream of wondrous power." No one knows whether the poem is based in truth, or fiction. What we do know is that generations of people from Abita Springs have chosen to memorialize the legend and connect it to their home where the trees still stand and the fresh springs flow.
TImes Picayune
The Legend and Lore of Abita
Abita Springs Town Talk By Kara Martinez BachmanLanguage
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