The hotel site was located near a salt lick that wild animals once visited as they traveled along the Buffalo Trace in southern Indiana.

[2][3] Some sources have cited a legend that suggests George Rogers Clark, who camped in the area during an expedition in 1786–87, may have named it after a site along the Cumberland River in Tennessee.

In 1846, prior to his departure for military service as a commissioned officer in the U.S. Army during the Mexican–American War, Bowles leased the property to John A.

Lane assembled a sawmill, erected a bridge to traverse Lick Creek, and built the West Baden Springs Hotel.

Joseph G. Rogers, a physician from Madison, Indiana, named the French Lick hotel's largest mineral spring Pluto's Well in 1869.

)[15] The original French Lick hotel, which was rebuilt or enlarged as a 2+1⁄2-story frame building with a wrap-around veranda in the Gothic Revival style, underwent few additional changes until the early 1880s, when it was sold to Hiram E. Wells and James M. Andrews.

The hotel and mineral springs were sold at a sheriff's sale organized to settle a legal dispute over Bowles's estate.

[17][18] Wells acquired Andrews's interest in the property in 1887 for $61,000, and immediately sold the hotel to a group of Louisville, Kentucky, investors for $122,000 in cash and $100,000 in the French Lick Springs Company's stock.

[14][19] In 1887 the Monon Railroad built an extension of its line to transport guests to the hotels and mineral springs at French Lick and West Baden.

Three major springs were located on the French Lick resort's property: Bowles (renamed Lithia), Proserpine, and the better-known Pluto.

The area's mineral water and baths were alleged to cure more than fifty ailments, including gout, alcoholism, and rheumatism, among others.

The exteriors of the main wing and later additions were unified with similar proportions, a consistent roofline, and the hotel's distinctive buff-colored brick.

The seven-story deluxe wing housed guest rooms and suites, including accommodations for the Taggart family when they resided at the hotel.

In addition, Taggart is credited with modernizing the hotel, which included bringing in electricity, adding a fresh water system, and establishing trolley service to French Lick.

He also convinced the Monon Railroad to lay a spur track to the hotel's grounds and run daily passenger service to Chicago.

[30] Recreational facilities included horseback riding, tennis, swimming, bowling, billiards, and a gym, as well as fine dining and dancing to music from the hotel's orchestra.

The Luther James family of Louisville, Kentucky, acquired the hotel in 1991, and Boykin Lodging of Cleveland, Ohio, bought it in 1997.

A partnership of business interests from within Indiana, including billionaire Bill Cook, submitted an application for a gambling license before purchasing the French Lick Springs Hotel from Boykin Lodging.

Refurbishments to the multi-structure French Lick hotel included updating its 443 guest rooms and restoration of the lobby, among other improvements.

[38] The French Lick resort, which is located on approximately 2,600 acres (1,100 hectares), today includes the hotel, a casino, restaurants, boutique shops, a spa, and a conference center.

Its recreational facilities offer guests swimming pools, three golf courses, a bowling alley, fitness center, stables for horses, and more than thirty miles of hiking trails.

French Lick's visitors included moguls, movie stars, and entertainers such as John Barrymore, Howard Hughes, Lana Turner, Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, Hoagy Carmichael, Duke Ellington, Irving Berlin, and Louis Armstrong; noted politicians such as Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, Richard Nixon, and Ronald Reagan; wealthy socialites, such as members of the Vanderbilt family; and others.

[40] A two-story, wood-framed structure in the middle of the French Lick hotel's Japanese gardens may have been used as a casino in the early twentieth century, although the building was identified in promotional materials as a place for bowling and dice games.

The painted brick, American Craftsman-style bungalow, which replaced an earlier building, is located northeast of the hotel's north wing.