The Jasper Douthit
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a map of Lithia Springs? We now have one online.
http://www.ecolitgy.com/JLD/LithiaMap.pdf
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Touring Lithia
Springs Chautauqua
Traipsing across the former
grounds of the Lithia Springs Chautauqua today, it is difficult to
imagine the property being criss-crossed with roads and lined with rows
of rental sites and permanent buildings. Beneath the mown grasses
and native plants that have withstood trampling by thousands of
suffragists and reformers the roadways and residences have vanished.
Camp Avenue was the route everyone used. It was the road to the
Dining Hall, built over a creek. In 1903, Douthit said less than
50 families were actually using the dining room. Apparently most
campers cooked their own fireside meals.
Camp
Avenue intersected with Lake Avenue. Lake Avenue followed the
shores of Lick Creek and passed the men’s dormitories, the Library
Chapel and one of several tenting grounds before intersecting with Elm
Avenue.
The Library Chapel was probably the largest enclosed building ever
erected on the property. Its log cabin design was in honor of
Jasper Douthit’s admiration for Abraham Lincoln, a circuit rider a
youthful Douthit often saw on the courthouse square. His respect
for Lincoln inspired Douthit to later recruit soldiers to fight against
slavery during the Civil War, earning him at least two documented
attempts on his life by a local resident.
Booker T. Washington, a Lithia Springs Chautauqua board member,
dedicated the Library Chapel in 1903. Superintendent
G. P. Randle, of the Mattoon (Illinois) city school district,
introduced Booker T. Washington who dedicated the Library Chapel,
donated by Mrs. and Mrs. Henry Pickering of Boston.
Washington also dedicated the collection of more than 500 donated
volumes. By January of 1904, Douthit announced more than 700
volumes filled the shelves of the Library Chapel, many of the books
being donated by the Woman’s Auxiliary Alliances, East and West.
The local Shelbyville public library was not dedicated until 1905, two
years after the Library Chapel at Lithia Springs.
Unique and lost to history is Booker T. Washington’s connection to
Douthit..., Washington’s public speaking engagements were in high
demand at the turn of the century as he solicited support for Tuskegee
Institute. His 1903 appearance at Lithia Chautauqua could have been yet
another whistle stop.
In his published papers, Washington wrote a letter on August 6 (the day
before he addressed Lithia Springs) from Petersburg, Illinois, home of
the Old Salem Chautauqua. He had just received word that, following a
legal battle, William Trotter and two others were to serve 30 days in
jail for disrupting one of his speeches in Boston, Mass. Booker
T. Washington opened the 13th annual session at Lithia Springs
Chautauqua at 2 pm on Saturday, Aug 7. After Chautauqua Superintendent
Randle had introduced “the great mental and spiritual emancipator of
his race,” Mr. Washington responded to the welcome with far more
heartfelt gratitude than was probably apparent to the crowd. Douthit
published part of Washington’s address in OBW.
"I am glad to return to Lithia Springs for the third time. I am always
glad to come here. I am always glad to shake the hand of your leader. I
have refused invitations to at least twenty-five Chautauquas this
season and this is the third and last one that I shall attend. I came
to Lithia Springs because I believe in what you are doing and in the
way you are doing it. Because you are strong for reality, simplicity,
getting down to nature. I am glad to see your children get out
where they can wade in the water, hear the songs of the birds and live
near nature. I was born in a log cabin, and I haven’t felt so much at
home for fifteen years as when Brother Douthit put me in that log
cabin."
On August 8, Washington wrote to Emmett Jay Scott from Shelbyville
creating probably the only documentation remaining in his papers
placing him in Shelbyville. Washington left for a much-needed three
week vacation in Europe. He was no doubt feeling the stress of endless
speaking engagements and fund raising, legal battles over civil rights
along with the criticism recently leveled at him by W.E.B. DuBois in
“The Souls of Black Folk.” He was also surely aware of trouble brewing
at Tuskegee.
While he was abroad, 47 students left Tuskegee University during a
three-day strike at Washington’s treasured school. “Booker Washington’s
Kind Words for Lithia” are quite poignant against this backdrop of
history. Washington’s mission for years was to garner support for
Tuskegee Institute.
A dozen sites at
Squirrel Plat were located along Elm
Avenue, between Windsor Road and Lake Avenue. Between Lake
Avenue and the proposed damming of Lick Creek to create
Lithia Lake, was Daisy Carlock Point. Carlock was the sister of
Elbert Hubbard, founder of the Roycrofters. Daisy and Elbert both
grew up in Hudson, Illinois. Elbert left for East Aurora, New
York, and Daisy eventually served as faculty at Berea College.
She was a friend of Lithia Springs and wrote an original poem about
John Sobieski, a popular chautauqua platform manager; heir to the
Polish throne; and a member of Jasper Douthit’s First Congregational
(Unitarian) Church in Shelbyville, Illinois.
Daisy Carlock Point was home to a Lithia Springs Association Rental
Cabin and two Lincoln Log Cabin Guest Houses. It was in one of
these two guest houses Booker T. Washington stayed in 1903.
Nearby was the Lithia Springs post office, telephone office and
chautauqua headquarters. Springs Road intersected with Lake
Avenue at the north end and Sycamore at the south end where Northwest
Road and South Hill Road met at the bridge on Lick Branch. The
Springs Road was named for the Lithia Springs that continue to bubble
through the surface, lending their name to the site.
The west end of Camp Avenue intersected with North Road. School
Plat and Wood Plat were served by North Road, north of the Dining Halls
and the Open Air Auditorium. Rocky Gulch was between School and
Wood Plats.
Between the loops of North Road and Northwest Road, was a large land
formation known as Oh, Be Joyful Gulch. Adjacent to this was the
White Oak Plat, the largest collection of sites. Along the gulch,
was another tenting ground and tennis courts. Tennis courts of
this era were probably lawn tennis rather than paved courts.
West of Northwest Road were a number of sites in the Valley Plat
area. Grace A. Turner’s private cabin was located here alongside
the third tenting grounds. Sycamore Avenue intersected with
Northwest Road and followed the southern edge of Valley Plat.
The northwest area of the property consisted of Thick Woods of Oak,
White Oak Plat with numerous sites, and a land formation known as
Possum Hollow. Nature hikes were a feature of Lithia Springs
Chautauqua and this would have been a likely place for flora and fauna
identification. These hikes were lead by professional naturists
and scientists.
Northwest Road cross Lick Branch and became South Hill Avenue,
separating the large Highland Plat area from Maple Plat. Just
beyond branch were two sites bearing a charming name of Idylwilde Point
and offering a breathtaking view of the main open lands of Lithia
Chautauqua grounds from the opposite shore of Lick Branch. There
were tenting grounds near the bridge at the foot of the rise known as
Blair Plat. Winifred Doutht, Myrl Hammit and Ella M. Hamlin each
had cabins in this most ideal location. From here, these
fortunate campers would have had a bird’s eye view of the chautauqua
village while being slightly removed from the hubbub of activity.
Just south of this area is May Apple Gulch and Linden Glen. Well
beyond what remains public land was Twin Points and a residence near
where South Hill Avenue intersected with Meadow Road. The latter
was the road to the feedyard, hitching grounds and clover meadows for
horses, the main form of transportation during the days of the Lithia
Springs Chautauqua.
It is unclear from maps what path campers would have followed to the
Bluff areas south of Lick Branch. This is the area where the
kindergarten was located on Bluff Point, just north of Bluff
Hollow. Bowman Point and the Bath Houses were located near the
Kindergarten area. Circle Plat, Dogwood Plat and and an athletic
field, in the shape of a baseball diamond on some maps, were all
located in this area.
During the off-season and after the chautauqua ceased to exist, the
property continued to be visited by students from the University of
Illinois.
Nearby a handful of lucky residents have recently built homes in the
Lynn Acres
subdivision. Otherwise, the Lithia Springs Chautauqua site is
today as quite and serene as the days when the local native Americans
hunted, fished and helped themselves to those lithia springs.
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