Still Waters: Stories from The Elms Hotel & Spa Archive

Still Waters: Table of Contents

Step into the history of The Elms Hotel & Spa through letters, diary entries, guest recollections and stories inspired by the hotel’s archives. Each chapter reveals another voice, another moment and another secret carried through generations.

1. The Arrival

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.

2. The Third Floor

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

3. The Grand Season

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.

4. The Waters Cure

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.

5. After the Springs

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.

6. What Doris Saw

Doris's statement is careful because Doris is trying to stay employed.

She is nine months into the job, new enough to hedge every sentence. The details are exact anyway: a woman in the corridor who was not on the schedule, a vacant room remade overnight in a fold Doris had not been trained to make.

7. The Chicago Party

A party arrives from Chicago by train. The senior front-of-house manager records the arrangements: room assignment, dining instructions, access protocols. He is a man who notes what happened and does not say what it means.

Room 214 appears here for the first time.

8. The Inventory

A basement inventory filed in November 1924. Every item counted, every location noted, every quantity recorded.

Near the end, the system breaks. One entry by the east wall, below the lower step. No quantity. No explanation. Only a note in a different hand: do not move.

9. Harry Sends His Regards

A family letter from The Elms in the mid-1940s. The writer is taking the waters, reading in the garden, sending news home.

Harry has sent his regards. No surname. No title.

Harry Sends His Regards

September 01, 2026 A family letter

Historical

A woman in a vintage floral dress sits at a table beside an open window

Era: 1939-1949

Overview

A family letter from The Elms in the mid-1940s. The writer is taking the waters, reading in the garden, sending news home.

Harry has sent his regards. No surname. No title.

Aged handwritten letter on folded cream paper with The Elms Hotel, Excelsior Springs, Missouri letterhead, written in cursive ink and laid flat on a dark wooden surface

My dear,

I have been at The Elms since Monday and will leave on Friday, which gives me exactly the right amount of time to take the waters, sit in the garden when it is warm enough, and read a novel I have been meaning to read for three years. I recommend this prescription to anyone.

The hotel is well. I stayed here once before, in 1938, and find it much as I remembered — or perhaps I remember it as it is now, which amounts to the same thing. The mineral spring is unchanged. The waters taste of iron, and I am told by everyone that this is the point.

There was a letter at breakfast this morning from Harry, just a note to ask after mother and to say he hoped the trip was doing some good. He remembers The Elms well. He said something in the letter about coming back when things settle down, which I thought was a kind thing to say even if we all know things are not likely to settle down for some time. He did not speak of the work at all. He rarely does, in letters. He sends his regards.

It is strange to be somewhere he has been and to think about what it is he is doing right now, while I am sitting here drinking iron water and watching a robin in the garden try to make sense of a piece of bread someone has left on the path. He is doing work most of us only read about, and this morning his letter arrived at breakfast at a hotel in Excelsior Springs, Missouri, and it said nothing in particular and was signed the way he always signs things. I thought about this for some time. Then I drank my water.

I will be home Friday. The waters have not done anything measurable but I feel very well, which may or may not be connected.

Yours,

The Elms Hotel

Excelsior Springs, Missouri

Wednesday

Still Waters is a narrative series inspired by the history of The Elms Hotel & Spa in Excelsior Springs, Missouri. Each story blends documented history, local lore, and original storytelling. While many places, people, and events are rooted in the historical record, the letters, journals, conversations, and personal accounts are works of historical fiction created to bring the past to life.

Some imagery featured throughout the series is created or enhanced using artificial intelligence as a visual storytelling tool. These images are intended to help interpret a time, place, or atmosphere when authentic historical photography is unavailable and should not be viewed as archival photographs or representations of documented historical events.

Our goal is not to recreate history exactly as it happened, but to honor the people, places, and moments that shaped The Elms and the community surrounding it through stories that could have been told by those who lived them.

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