Martinsville: The City of Mineral Water

Martinsville has been the seat of Morgan County since it was platted in March of eighteen twenty-two, named for John Martin, a county commissioner. But the identity that made it famous came from underground. The town sits above artesian mineral water wells, and beginning with the first sanitarium in eighteen eighty-eight, a string of health resorts drew thousands of visitors who believed the water could cure whatever ailed them.

At the peak, Martinsville was known across Indiana and beyond as the City of Mineral Water. The last sanitarium, Home Lawn, did not close until nineteen sixty-eight, an eighty-year run. The legacy survives in an unusual place: the local high school mascot is the Artesians, one of the only schools in the country named for a type of well.

John Martin gave the town its name. The water made it famous.