Feb 8, 2019
(February 2, 2019) The rivalry during the early 1900s between two lavish hotels in the southern Indiana towns of French Lick and West Baden is almost as well known as the mineral waters they sold - marketed, respectively, as Pluto and Sprudel water. Far less remembered: The small towns also were archrivals on the basketball court because, until a consolidation fraught with controversy during the late 1950s, French Lick and West Baden each had their own high school.
Among the residents who witnessed the merger and the creation of what became Springs Valley High School - with a basketball team known as the Black Hawks - was a first-grade student in French Lick named Tim Wright. He grew up to become a public figure, known as the banjo- and guitar-playing sibling in The Wright Brothers Band, the Indiana-based group that has performed pop, country, rock and bluegrass music at the Grand Ole Opry, on national TV shows and even on the soundtrack of a Hollywood movie.
Tim Wright, who
lives in Carmel now, has written a
book, The
Valley Boys: The Story of the 1958 Springs Valley Black
Hawks, drawn from extensive interviews about the
unfolding of the high school consolidation in the "twin cities"
in Orange County. In addition to describing
the social history of the school consolidation, Tim's book focuses
on the basketball players themselves, former rivals who had to come
together as one team.
He is Nelson's studio guest to discuss the merger that once was the talk of the state. The high schools' mascots had been the Red Devils (a nod to Pluto) for French Lick, and across the railroad tracks that separated the two town, the Sprudels (depicted as a wood gnome) for West Baden.
Tim also shares insights about the evolution of the Wright Brothers Band, who cut their first album in the early 1970s. Tim and his brother Tom, a vocalist, have been the core of the band, which has performed with headliners including Dolly Parton, Willie Nelson and Johnny Cash. The band also has performed the national anthem at Indianapolis Coltsand Indianapolis Indians games.
During the 1950s, Tim and Tom Wright's grandfather ran a barber shop in French Lick that was a hub for chatter about the consolidation of the high schools, the blending of the basketball teams and the economic challenges of Springs Valley.
"Most folks in Orange County
in the '50s considered themselves poor," Tim Wright notes
in The Valley Boys. "There was no real industry, and
wages were low."
In addition, the West Baden Springs Hotel - with a spectacular atrium touted as the "Eighth Wonder of the World" - had closed during the Great Depression. The landmark had various other owners over the years (including Jesuit priests and a culinary school), and did not reopen as a hotel until a spectacular restoration in 2007.
According to Tim's research, the combined population of the two towns was about 3,500 in 1958. Although wealthy visitors continued to patronize the French Lick Springs Hotel, which remained open, many assumed its glory era had passed.
Some history facts:
- In the early 1950s, the West Baden Sprudels had been coached by Marvin Wood, who later became the basketball coach of another tiny school, Milan High School. In 1954, Wood was the coach for the legendary Milan team with Bobby Plump that won the state tournament.
- John McDowell, a long-time bass guitarist and vocalist with the Wright Brothers Band (he sometimes is called the "third brother") is the nephew of Jimmy Mack, the former TV personality in Indianapolis who was the host of "Bandstand 13," a popular teen dance show during the 1960s. In 2016, Jimmy Mack, who is now 96, was a studio guest on Hoosier History Live.
- The Wright Brothers Band can be heard on the soundtrack of Overboard (1987), a movie starring Goldie Hawn.
- Known as the Wright Brothers Overland Stage Company when the band formed in 1972, the group has performed across the country. In Indiana, their performance venues have included the restored landmarks from Tim and Tom's boyhood, the French Lick and West Baden hotels.
The Wright Brothers gained national attention during the 1980s with their hit song "Made in the USA," which, as the title suggests, celebrates companies that manufactured their products in this country.
The brothers' father, Billy D. Wright, was a singer in southern Indiana. During the 1940s, he was a basketball star for the French Lick Red Devils, according to The Valley Boys.
For the book, Tim Wright interviewed one of the key figures involved in the aftermath of the consolidation of the rival high schools: Rex Wells, a West Baden native who, in his 20s, became the widely admired coach of the inaugural Springs Valley High School basketball team.
Wells is quoted as saying: "It was the team and not the school board that consolidated the two schools."