Berkeley Springs Historic State Park is a state park situated in the middle of Berkeley Springs,
West Virginia. At the heart of the park is its spa whose waters are said to have medicinal powers in curing digestive problems and stress. The natives of this area and George Washington visited this spa. It is America's only state-run spa.
Since the 1750s, this parkland was used as a health resort, but the land was given in 1776 to Virginia by Lord Fairfax. Since then, it has been run by the West Virginia Division of Natural Resources. At this spa, water flows from natural springs at a steady temperature of 74.3 degrees, arising from Warm Springs Ridge's Oriskany sandstone. The water from here contains huge amounts of nitrates, sulfates and carbonates and flows at the speed of 750-2000 gallons per minute.
There is so much water that it can be used by park bathrooms and every home in town since this is also the source of municipal water. And, it is also bottled and sold in the market.
The historic Roman Bathhouse is known as Berkeley Springs' oldest building. It was built in 1815 in Federal-style architecture on the site of a bathhouse belonging to James Rumsey. Rumsey's bathhouse was built in 1784 and had five bathing rooms and dressing rooms. Today, the building contains nine independent bathing rooms with tubs whose capacity is 750 gallons of water and can be heated to 102 degrees.
