Chautauqua Buildings

In its heyday, Chautauqua Park had eighty-eight cottages surrounding the Tabernacle, a grocery, a restaurant, and a forty-room hotel. Before its demise in 1917, the Chautauqua Assembly drew people from across the United States, with ten trains making daily stops in Crystal Springs for passengers bound for Chautauqua. After the assembly disbanded in Crystal Springs, the hotel, cottages, and most other buildings fell into disrepair, were moved, or were demolished. The Round House is the shell of the former restaurant, which once served more than one hundred people at a time, and it is still used as an open-air pavilion by local residents for birthday parties, reunions, and other functions. Through the efforts of many volunteers and funding provided or leveraged by the City of Crystal Springs, progress has been made toward redeveloping and restoring Chautauqua Park to its former glory.

Crystal Springs, Mississippi · United States