They came, it was said, to sip, gulp and guzzle the foul-smelling water as it trickled from the primitive spigots. For three-quarters of a century, St. Petersburg’s downtown Fountain of Youth produced what some claimed was a magical elixir that all but cured the infirmities of the aged – the lame could walk, the nearly-blind saw clearly, those without energy were suddenly filled with youthful vigor (or “pep,” in the parlance of the times).
“I have been drinking it for two or three months, been carrying it half a mile or more every day. Haven’t got anything else to do, so come down to the well every day for a jugful or two, it helps my kidney, and I believe it has helped my rheumatism.”
- “An old gentleman,” St. Petersburg Times, March 3, 1916
Vintage newspaper articles are filled with tales of people filling bottles, pails and tubs with the sulfurous stuff. In 1925, it was reported, a woman inquired at the downtown freight office about the cost of shipping an entire boxcar of Fountain of Youth water up north.
Particularly in the early decades of the 20th century, the oft-told tale of Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de Leon, and his quest for the water that could turn back time, was a major factor in luring winter visitors to Florida. Come for the climate, stay for the tonic…