In 1882, Lampasas entered a period of prosperity when it became the western terminus of the Gulf, Colorado & Santa Fe line from Galveston, serving settlers as a trading point and drawing visitors seeking the reputed curative powers of its spring water. Businessmen from Houston and Galveston built the Grand Park Hotel, also called the Park Hotel, to benefit from the city’s popularity, and it opened in 1883 as a two-story frame structure more than 300 feet long overlooking lawns that sloped to Sulphur Creek. The resort offered 200 guest rooms, family cabins, and quarters for single men on Bachelor’s Row, along with dining rooms, parlors, ballrooms, an outdoor bandstand, and bathing facilities for the mineral springs. Guests took part in shooting contests, horseracing, boating, and other activities, and a mule-drawn trolley carried them between the hotel and the railroad depot. The hotel also hosted organization meetings, including the first convention of the Texas Bankers Association, founded in 1885 by Lampasas banker Frank Malone. Its prominence faded quickly as the rail line extended farther west and medical advances reduced the appeal of curative waters; by the 1890s Lampasas was in recession, the hotel became part of the Keely Institute in 1891, later changed hands twice, and burned in February 1895. Only the stone parts of the bathhouses remain as reminders of that glamorous period in Lampasas history.