Mineral Well / Mineral Well

In 1890 Alf Clark, who hoped to find oil at this site, found instead mineral water. Baths or drinks of Clark’s Red Cross Electric Mineral Water were said to cure many maladies. By 1893 the Big Rapids Mineral Water Company was marketing the water on the East Coast and using it in its bathhouse on West Maple. In 1896, having changed its product name to Natural Medicinal Water, the firm built a bandstand next to the bathhouse. Twenty warm, soothing mineral baths cost five dollars. The water was bottled in a plant on North State Street. The 1905 prospectus of the Yo-Landa Mineral Springs Company envisioned using Clark’s mineral water in soft drinks, automobile antifreeze, and curative drinks. But scientific medicine, exemplified by the Ferris State College School of Pharmacy, which opened in 1893, was beginning to challenge elixirs. In 1912 the last local effort to market Clark’s water failed. Its plant became Pioneer Publications’ home in 1971, and in 1979 the well site became part of Ferris State, whose offerings include degrees in pharmacy, optometry, and allied health.