Continuously serving Kosciusko County since 1854
It was the water gushing out of the hillsides that first attracted the three Beyer brothers to the property on the eastern shore of what is now Winona Lake. They purchased a large tract of land containing those springs in 1881, planning to build springhouses over the natural springs and artesian wells to provide natural refrigeration for their egg and dairy business.
When they realized the recreational potential of the wooded hillsides, however, they began creating tourist attractions and opened Spring Fountain Park to the public in 1890. The first fountain wasn’t a fountain at all.
They had cleverly capped off one of the springs, running a hose into the trunk of a sturdy maple tree located at the foot of Swiss Terrace, one of the first streets of the town.
Literature from the time says “Out of the trunk of a sturdy maple tree ... flowed a never-failing stream of crystal spring water, cool, enervating and delicious. Here visitors slaked their thirst and stopped to wonder at the strange phenomenon of a maple tree flowing pure water.”
As Spring Fountain Park developed, however, a number of the natural springs were fitted with fountain structures, often bearing the names of benefactors who donated them. Specific locations have been lost, but a number of the fountains live on in the historic literature, bearing names including Winona Springs, The Rustic Well and Homestead Spring.
Three springs, however, have survived and have been revived and live on today under the names of Dukes/Mikesell Fountain, The Sunday Grotto and The Studebaker Fountain.
Dukes Fountain
Dukes Fountain, located between the Winona Hotel and the Billy Sunday Tabernacle, was one of the most recognized and most photographed of the town’s fountains. Its unique design featured multiple tiers and surrounding landscaping. The fountain was a gift of the A. N. Dukes family of Peru, Ind. Dukes was on the Winona Assembly’s Board of Directors, and he was president of Indiana Manufacturing Co., Peru, Ind. The present day hospital in Peru bears his name, as well.
Literature from the time said, “Captain Dukes, who built this hospital as a gift to the community, was a prince among men. He was a man of excellent business qualifications, of upright Christian character and philanthropic disposition. He came by the rank of captain by virtue of service in the war with the Sioux Indians in Minnesota.”
Though the fountain appeared regularly on the town’s postcards and publicity materials, it eventually fell into decay and was abandoned. The fountain was rebuilt and revived, beginning in 1998, as a tribute to a well-known town personality, Blaine Mikesell and his wife Charlotte.
In 1998, the Mikesells donated money to have the fountain restored. Mikesell, who died on Christmas Day 2006, was raised on the approximate site of the present Indiana Hall on the Grace College campus. The Mikesells lived for many years at 100 Chestnut Ave., Winona Lake, overlooking the site of the original Dukes Fountain.
Mikesell was well-respected in the community as a businessman, civic leader and philanthropist. He was president of ABC Industries, owned a management corporation in Florida, was the founder of ABC Travel Agency, served on the board of directors and was part-owner and president of Wagon Wheel Playhouse, and was part owner of the Warsaw Holiday Inn, now the Wyndham Hotel on Center Street.
Members of the Mikesell family came from as far as California and Michigan for the dedication of the restored fountain in 2016. A monument stone by the fountain reads, “Mikesell Fountain 1998, Blaine and Charlotte Mikesell, Honoring Winona Lake.”
The Sunday Grotto
An obscure article in a December 1897 magazine titled “The Winonian,” said, “Old friends will hardly recognize Garfield Spring next year, for it is to be transformed into an inviting grotto.”
When the Beyer brothers purchased the land in 1881, they named the spring, situated alongside Twelfth Street just beneath the Billy Sunday Home, Garfield Spring. The area surrounding it was named Garfield Park, in honor of the 20th President of the United States, who was shot in July 1881 and died 11 weeks later. The hydraulic ram which harnessed the waters of this spring was purchased by the Beyer brothers and came from Garfield’s farm in Mentor, Ohio. It was said to be capable of forcing an inexhaustible supply of pure water to the cottages along the hillside for half a mile.
In 1897 the stone walls of the Grotto were placed around the spring. Benches for seating circled the inside of the large open subterranean room made from native field stone. When Billy and Helen Sunday relocated to Winona Lake in 1911 and purchased the property which contained the spring, Mrs. Sunday dammed the spring and kept goldfish there, creating a koi pond.
In the 1980s the town of Winona Lake filled in the Grotto Spring, but when the spring water found a new route and destroyed the pavement on the Twelfth Street Hill, the gravel was removed and, under the direction of Ken Nisly, the Grotto was restored. Today, the water flows out via a concrete spillway and then passes under a small bridge also made of native field stone.
Studebaker Fountain
The Studebaker Fountain, which harnesses another vigorous spring in Garfield Park just behind the K21 building to the south of Rodeheaver Auditorium, was a gift from the auto magnate John M. Studebaker of South Bend.
Studebaker (1833-1917) was the Pennsylvania Dutch co-founder and later executive of the Studebaker Corporation automobile manufacturers. He was the third son of the founding Studebaker family, and played a key role in the growth of the company during his years as president.
Studebaker was a financier, an early director, and third president of the Winona Assembly and Summer School. The spring was previously used by the Beyer Brothers as an ice and product storage room. Behind the limestone wall that currently forms the background of the Studebaker Fountain was an underground room. Cooled by a natural spring, the room provided a storage place for the Beyer Brothers’ produce and for ice cut from Winona Lake each winter. As the only method of refrigeration, ice was a valuable commodity in the early twentieth century. The Winona Ice Company cut the ice from the lake each winter and stored it through the year. They then delivered ice by running a regular route throughout the town.
The Studebaker Fountain edifice was created in 1902. The fountain’s dolphin spout is surrounded by granite and marble veneered walls. The fountain was the subject of a humorous poem written in 1911 by local poet and town leader Victor M. Hatfield. In the poem a lover waxes eloquent about his lover, noting that the “delicious waters” pass through lips like hers. Stunned by her sudden departure, he discovers by the light of the next day that he inadvertently compared her lips to those of a gargoyle on the spring.
The waters in these three major fountains —Duke/Mikesell, Garfield Grotto and Studebaker — still flow today to the delight of tourists and residents. The maple tree not so much.
