A Landmark of American History Falls on Hard Times, Then Is Rescued by a Texas Developer and Bipartisan Compromise

The Bedford Springs Hotel has sat in the south-central Pennsylvania valley since the early frontier days, and by 1805 she started to become America’s first grand resort.

Acroterion via Wikimedia Commons CC4.0
The Omni Bedford Springs Resort at Bedford, Pennsylvania. Acroterion via Wikimedia Commons CC4.0

BEDFORD, Pennsylvania — For nearly two decades, every time the alarm rang out from Bedford Fire Department Number 1, people in town would say a little prayer that the call wasn’t for the old Bedford Springs Hotel — a primarily wooden structure built when President Jefferson was in office that was sitting abandoned just a mile outside town.

Bedford resident Bette Slayton said, “We would be in town and hear the fire whistle go off and look at each other and just cross our fingers that it wasn’t the Springs.”

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