The Old Roman Bath House – Berkeley Springs, West Virginia

Berkeley Springs is a town in and the county seat of Morgan County, West Virginia, United States, in the state’s Eastern Panhandle. The town is incorporated as Bath, but it is often referred to by the name of its post office, Berkeley Springs. In 1748, George Washington, then just 16 years old, was part of the survey party that surveyed the Eastern Panhandle region for Thomas Fairfax, 6th Lord Fairfax of Cameron. He later returned several times over the next several years with his half-brother, Lawrence, who was ill and hoped that the warm springs might improve his health. The springs, and their rumored medicinal benefits, attracted numerous Aboriginal Americans as well as Europeans to the area. While vacationing in the area in 1767, Washington made note of how busy the town had become. Lord Fairfax had built a summer home there and a "private bath" making the area a popular destination for Virginia’s social elite.

With the advent of independence, the Virginia Legislature established a town around the spring in December 1776. The town was officially named Bath, in honour of England’s spa city of Bath. Bath’s population increased during and immediately after the Revolutionary War as wounded soldiers and others came to the area believing that the warm springs had medicinal qualities. Bath gained a reputation as a somewhat wild town where eating, drinking, dancing and, gambling on the daily horse races were the order of the day.

George Washington, his family members and several of the mew republic’s elite were among the town’s first landowners. The main north-south street was named Washington and its main east-west street was named Fairfax. Also, four acres were set aside for "suffering humanity." The area around the springs was always public ground known as The Grove and overseen by a state appointed group of Berkeley Springs Trustees. The historic park with its springs and bathhouses was made part of the West Virginia state park system in 1925. Berkeley Springs is a noted arts community with working artists accounting for approximately 1% of the county population of 16,000. Since 1994, the town has been listed in all four editions of John Villani’s "100 Best Art Towns in America," one of only 11 towns so rated.

This is the Gentleman’s Spring (in the foreground) and the Roman Bath House; the bath house is the oldest public building in Berkeley Springs and was built around 1815 on the site of a 1784 structure that housed five bathing chambers and dressing rooms.