Berkeley Springs

Berkeley Springs is a warm-spring town in the West Virginia panhandle whose water has drawn users since long before the state existed: indigenous healing use, colonial road-building around the baths, and George Washington's own bathing visits in his surveyor years, recorded in his journals. The town was built as America's first spa, and the park at its center still runs the springs as public baths and Roman-style pools.

The community tradition is of a healing town that never stopped healing: therapists, mineral-water drinkers, and a well-being culture that made the town a stop on several generations' seeker circuits. As a spring site, its continuity is the point.

Visiting

Berkeley Springs State Park, center of town; baths and pools have fees and posted hours. See the WV State Parks page.

Photo: [Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:BerkeleySpringsSP_WestVirginia.jpg), CC BY-SA.