A child's letter, folded into family papers. Elsie Everhart is two days into a stay at The Elms in the summer of 1892, writing to her cousin Charlotte with the solemn precision of someone who has been trained to write properly and has not yet learned which details adults would prefer she leave out.

A housekeeper's diary page from the third floor, written by a woman whose name is reduced in the file to one initial: A.

Overview : A guest letter from The Elms at the height of its resort years. The writer has been here nearly two weeks, has taken the waters, and has become a believer. 

Overview: The oldest document in the archive. The hotel does not exist yet. A woman has come to Excelsior Springs in 1882 with a child and a belief in the mineral waters.

Elsie's second letter, written from the same trip a few days later. Same cousin, same precision, same instinct for recording what adults consider unremarkable.

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