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• Artesian Hotel And Casino Sulphur Oklahoma
• Artesian Casino Sulphur Oklahoma
• Artesian Casino Sulphur Oklahoma

The Artesian Hotel Casino & Spa is located at Sulphur, Oklahoma. The property has a casino, 81 hotel rooms, 3 restaurants and event & conferences facilities. From world-class spa facilities and luxury shopping to a bustling casino, guests will delight at the array of fabulous amenities and activities just steps from their rooms. If business or group events are on the agenda, look no further than The Artesian’s extensive meeting facilities, complete with on-site services to cater to your every need.

The Artesian Hotel, Casino and Spa is a hotel in Sulphur, Oklahoma. Amenities include a casino, swimming pool, fitness center, and spa.^[1]

History[edit]

The original hotel was built in 1906 using bricks from the Bland Hotel^[2] and decorated with furniture from the St. Louis World's Fair.^[3] It was a four-story brick building, and contained the town's only elevator.^[2] The architects J.M. Bayless and C.J. Webster named it the Artesian after an artesian well was discovered during construction. Carrie Nation, William Howard Taft, William H. Murray, Roy J. Turner and John Wayne all stayed at the hotel.^[2][4] It served as a summer residence for Oklahoma's first governor Charles N. Haskell.^[2][4] The original building was destroyed by fire in 1962 and replaced in 1965 by a plain 72 unit building constructed at a cost of a half-million dollars. The new building was named The Artesian Motor Hotel.^[3][4]

History with the Chickasaw Nation[edit]

In 1972, The Artesian Motor Hotel was on the verge of bankruptcy and was purchased at auction by the Chickasaw Nation, which remodeled it and renamed it the Chickasaw Motor Inn.^[4] The Chickasaw Motor Inn served as the tribal headquarters from 1972 until 1977,^[5] when the Chickasaw Nation built its current tribal headquarters in Ada, Oklahoma.^[4] Groundbreaking on the newest building, modeled after the 1906 hotel, was held on October 14, 2010.

References[edit]

1. ^ ^ab'See and Do - Chickasaw Country'. chickasawcountry.com.
2. ^ ^abcd'New Artesian Hotel in Sulphur to honor memory of predecessor', The Daily Ardmoreite, Oct. 19, 2010
3. ^ ^ab'Platt National Park', Oklahoma Today Summer 1966 pp. 3-5
4. ^ ^abcdeCashin, Edward J., 'Epilogue', Guardians of the valley: Chickasaws in colonial South Carolina and Georgia, p 148-149
5. ^https://www.chickasaw.net/News/Press-Releases/2012-Press-Releases/Chickasaw-Motor-Inn-First-Chickasaw-Nation-Busines.aspx

SULPHUR — Depending on how you look at it, the Artesian Hotel is either celebrating its third or 110th anniversary Tuesday.

The answer depends on which Artesian you're talking about. The current one, the Artesian Hotel, Casino and Spa, is a modern getaway, complete with a gym and a number of saunas and pools.

The other hasn't been around for 54 years. The original Artesian, a hotel that once stood where its successor stands now, was built in 1906 and shone as an Oklahoma landmark until it burned down in 1962.

Even though the latter has been gone for half a century, it is, in a way, resurrected in the new Artesian, built by the Chickasaw Nation in 2013.

While the new hotel's interior is very modern, its exterior is heavily modeled after the original, so much so that at first glance they are nearly identical.

The Artesian, as it stands today, is not so much new as it is back.

“People still say it today. It's like when that original hotel burned down, a piece of Sulphur, in essence, passed away with the hotel. And since it's come back, people have literally flocked to it,” said Nick Starns, the Artesian's area general manager.

The hotel's history is tightly wound with the city of Sulphur's. Local historian Dennis Muncrief, who grew up in and studied Sulphur, said the residents of this time period were the spirit of the town. The Sulphur he remembers, the time of the original Artesian, was a small but bustling town, spurred by mom-and-pop shops and tourism from the Chickasaw National Recreation Area, and featuring a packed Main Street and tightknit community.

Treasured memories

Lifelong Sulphur resident Maxine Lannom, 89, lived in the country outskirts of the town. To her, the hotel was distant, a destination for special occasions. She went to her high school's junior and senior banquets at the hotel. She still has the invitation for her senior banquet in 1946, where the dinner reservation was $1.02. She only ever saw the first floor of the hotel, but to her, the hotel was, in a word, “elegant.”

The town has always been known for the area's springs and aquifers, and the original hotel used the water to fuel its bathhouses. The hotel itself was luxurious, Lannom said. Pillars lined the first-floor lobby to the 1,000-room hotel. Guests could sit in rocking chairs by large, open windows overlooking the recreation area. Visitors and residents of Sulphur would wander in just to enjoy the place, she said.

To Billie June Holdridge, 93, the original hotel was once a second home.

“It was one of the showplaces in the state of Oklahoma,” Holdridge said. “It was so nice. At that time, it was nicer than anything they had in Oklahoma City. It was a landmark.”

Holdridge's cousin worked in the hotel's bathhouse when Holdridge was young, allowing her free roam of the place as a child. She remembers napping on the massage tables, befriending the staff and roller skating along the sidewalk outside.

The hotel was a hot spot for local and national celebrities, including a parade of local politicians, former President William H. Taft and entertainers Roy Rogers, Gene Autry and Dale Evans. When Holdridge was older, actor John Wayne visited the hotel and autographed a card for her son.

Out of the ashes

Holdridge was there the day the hotel burned. Driving into town late one evening, she and her husband were met with the blaze.

Lannom remembers the fire as well. Her husband worked for the park service and helped fight the flames for two days and two nights, she said. By the time the fire was extinguished, the hotel had burned to the ground.

Sulphur residents would move over the rubble for the next few days, collecting surviving bricks to remember the hotel, said Mary Lou Heltzel, a historian at the Arbuckle Historical Society.

Residents said the loss of the hotel was a blow.

“Well, it broke my heart. I had practically been raised in it, and to see it burn to the ground was heartbreaking,” Holdridge said.

The Artesian hotel was quickly replaced by the one-story Artesian Motor Inn. In 1972, the Chickasaw Nation bought the building, renaming it the Chickasaw Motor Inn. The purchase was the beginning of the tribe's future rejuvenation of Sulphur, a trend that picked up with the recent additions of the Chickasaw Cultural Center and new Artesian.

The new Artesian has turned into a focal point of the town's pride, a place for residents to remember their roots while also celebrating where they are now.

Starns said when the hotel opened it was flooded with residents bringing in artifacts from the original Artesian, offering photos, key fobs, silverware, tile work, pamphlets, an old crystal coffee pot, an antique phonograph and the bricks left in the rubble. Due to space, they couldn't accept everything, but Starns said the artifacts must have numbered in the hundreds.

Artesian Hotel And Casino Sulphur Oklahoma

The decades following the Artesian fire marked an economic slump for Sulphur, Muncrief said. The recreation area still brought tourists, but, from his perspective, the town he had grown up in had lost some of its character. More chain restaurants entered the town, and older areas were not maintained as well, he said.

Since the new Artesian opened, several new businesses have come to the town, and properties have been opened for future leases, said Melissa Pratt, executive director of the Murray County Development Authority. Muncrief said the historic part of town has taken strides to renovate storefronts, slowly giving the town a “face-lift,” he said.

The hotel also is engaged with the community of Sulphur. It holds events for Christmas and the Fourth of July as well as an art festival, all of which bring together thousands of locals, Starns said. The new hotel also hosts Sulphur High School's proms, renewing a tradition from the original Artesian.

“It's like a piece of the city's heart is back,” Starns said. “Much like every Oklahoman takes to the Oklahoma City Thunder … it's really the same in Sulphur. It's like you have some part of ownership in the Artesian. That's how important the facility has become to the city, and we love that.”

If you go

The Artesian Hotel, Casino and Spa

Artesian Casino Sulphur Oklahoma

Artesian Casino Sulphur Oklahoma

Where: 1001 W First St., Sulphur, OK 73086.

Call: (855) 455-5255.

Online: artesianhotel.com.

The current Artesian's lobby. [Photo provided]