Famous Crazy Water

He headed northwest about 100 miles to an acclaimed health resort town tucked away in the beautiful Palo Pinto Mountains.  In the town of Mineral Wells, the pharmacist went on a drinking binge of mineral water and his ailments disappeared.  He quickly sold  his 25 year old pharmacy in Waco and moved lock, stock and ambition to Mineral Wells. 

 It was in 1904 that Ed Dismuke founded the Famous Mineral Water Company establishing himself as one of the town’s premier purveyors of the health-giving elixir.  The Famous Pavilion was built in 1914, complete with a game parlor and a fortune telling booth. 

Dismuke’s timing was perfect.  Mineral Wells already had a worldwide reputation for its “Crazy Water” after curing a woman suffering from a nervous condition drank from a mineral well in the late 1800’s.  Health seekers from all over the globe flooded to this tiny mountain community by the thousands every year.  Mineral Wells, from the 1900’s to the 1950’s, was known to be the premier Spa Resort Town in Southern United States.  People came to drink and bathe in the healing mineral waters.

The legacy of making mineral water products and serving it up by the glass continued when his wife Ida Mae Dismuke sold the Famous Mineral Water Co. to J.C. Causey in 1958.  The daughter of J.C. Causey now lives in Canton, Texas and gives testimony to the healthful relief the people who flocked to the Mineral Wells drinking the “Famous” waters received.

Mr. Causey sold the company to Doyle Gill in 1979 and he operated it until 1981 when he sold it Freddie and Sis Newsome.  The Newsome family distributed the waters for 4 years and then they sold the Famous Mineral Water Co. to A.D. and Susan Stone.  In August of 1985, the Stone family donated the Famous Mineral Water Co. to the Palo Pinto Historical Foundation.

On April 29, 1988, H.F. and Charles Hickey extensively restored and renovated the Famous Mineral Water Pavilion. The Hickey family successfully operated the company for approximately five years under lease from the Foundation.

On April 15, 1994, the Famous Mineral Water Company was leased from the Palo Pinto Historical Foundation by Zephyr Water Company and operated by Sherry Holland.

The Historical Foundation sold the Property to the present owners, Bill and Helen Arneson and Carol and Scott Elder on October 1, 1999. 

Now celebrating over 100 years of service to the area, loyal patrons continue to purchase bottles of the original mineral, deep well mineral, and reverse osmosis waters. Some customers bring their own containers and have them filled inside the original Famous Pavilion.

The Famous Mineral Water Company is the sole remaining namesake of Mineral Wells.