In the 1850s, the first white settlers found Indians using curative waters here, and a town was quickly developed around the springs. Stage and freight routes and many cattle drives passed this way. The springs took the name of landowner John Hancock. About 1882, on a hill to the north, promoters of the Santa Fe Railway built a 200-room Park Hotel, with a boardwalk to the springs, bathhouses, and many other luxuries. It gained wide fame as the South's finest health resort. The hotel closed in a few years, later housed Centenary College, and burned in 1895. The area is now a city park.