The Kilmer Sanitarium

When S. Andral Kilmer built a sanitarium at Osborne Hollow in 1892 and advertised it’s mineral spring as a health spa, he succeeded in getting the name of the community changed from Osborne Hollow to Sanitaria Springs.

The sanitarium was a handsome, four-story hotel in a park like setting. There was a fireplace on the east end of the building and a large brick oven in the kitchen. Guests came from miles around and lived at the hotel while being treated for cancer. “Cancers” purportedly drawn out by plasters were preserved in glass jars and put on display.

A spring house near the hotel contained a large stone fountain. Sulphur water from an artesian spring beneath it flowed endlessly through the fountain into a pool surrounded by moss covered rocks. Six steps from ground level led to a balcony edged with flowering plants. Potted ferns with long, trailing fronds hung from the brass railing. The balcony edged with flowering plants. The balcony, furnished with rocking chairs and well supplied with mugs for the beneficial water, provided an attractive place for guests to spend a quiet afternoon while taking the treatment.

A boiler house with a brick smokestack contained a generating plant that heated the buildings and also supplied electricity for the lights. Water was piped to the hotel from the reservoir on the hill.

The bath area, an addition at the western end of the hotel, contained several small rooms into which hot steam was piped. A steam bath cost three dollars. There was also a pool in this area for bathing.

A coach house with a turreted top had rooms on the second floor for the caretaker. There was a turntable inside the building on which the coaches could be turned around by hand. Of the four original structures, the coach house is the only one still standing (2011 still standing). The entire building bridges Osborne Creek which flows across the property.

Footbridges that were lighted in the evening also spanned the creek, and paths were made through the woods on the other side where guests strolled at their leisure.

Andral Kilmer and his brother Jonas also made a fortune selling a cure-all medicine known as Swamp Root. It was made in the old Kilmer building near the viaduct in Binghamton. The contents included mineral water from the sulphur Spring and a variety of roots and herbs fortified by a generous supply of alcohol.

A few years prior to World War I, the sanitarium building was converted into a summer boarding house. It was closed in 1922.

After Mr. Kilmer’s death in 1924, the property was sold to Jehovah’s Witnesses. All the buildings were dismantled and moved to Ithaca except the coach house. That was remodeled and finally sold to Mr. and Mrs. William Myers who made it into a unique and charming home.

Excerpt taken from the book Famines, Fires & Festivals by R. Leone Jacob (former Colesville historian)