The Artesian Hotel Casino & Spa is located at Sulphur, Oklahoma. The property has a casino, 81 hotel rooms, 3 restaurants and event & conferences facilities. Part of the elegantly restored Artesian Hotel, The Artesian Casino features over 280 vibrant electronic games for visitors to enjoy in addition to a variety of table games such as Blackjack, Ultimate Texas Hold'em and King's Bounty. Located in Sulphur, Oklahoma, The Artesian casino is open to guests 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

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By Amber Friend Staff Writer afriend@oklahoman.com

SULPHUR — Depending on how you look at it, the Artesian Hotel is either celebrating its third or 110th anniversary Tuesday.

The answer depends on which Artesian you're talking about. The current one, the Artesian Hotel, Casino and Spa, is a modern getaway, complete with a gym and a number of saunas and pools.

The other hasn't been around for 54 years. The original Artesian, a hotel that once stood where its successor stands now, was built in 1906 and shone as an Oklahoma landmark until it burned down in 1962.

Even though the latter has been gone for half a century, it is, in a way, resurrected in the new Artesian, built by the Chickasaw Nation in 2013.

Artesian Casino Sulphur Ok

While the new hotel's interior is very modern, its exterior is heavily modeled after the original, so much so that at first glance they are nearly identical.

The Artesian, as it stands today, is not so much new as it is back.

“People still say it today. It's like when that original hotel burned down, a piece of Sulphur, in essence, passed away with the hotel. And since it's come back, people have literally flocked to it,” said Nick Starns, the Artesian's area general manager.

The hotel's history is tightly wound with the city of Sulphur's. Local historian Dennis Muncrief, who grew up in and studied Sulphur, said the residents of this time period were the spirit of the town. The Sulphur he remembers, the time of the original Artesian, was a small but bustling town, spurred by mom-and-pop shops and tourism from the Chickasaw National Recreation Area, and featuring a packed Main Street and tightknit community.

Treasured memories

Lifelong Sulphur resident Maxine Lannom, 89, lived in the country outskirts of the town. To her, the hotel was distant, a destination for special occasions. She went to her high school's junior and senior banquets at the hotel. She still has the invitation for her senior banquet in 1946, where the dinner reservation was $1.02. She only ever saw the first floor of the hotel, but to her, the hotel was, in a word, “elegant.”

The town has always been known for the area's springs and aquifers, and the original hotel used the water to fuel its bathhouses. The hotel itself was luxurious, Lannom said. Pillars lined the first-floor lobby to the 1,000-room hotel. Guests could sit in rocking chairs by large, open windows overlooking the recreation area. Visitors and residents of Sulphur would wander in just to enjoy the place, she said.

To Billie June Holdridge, 93, the original hotel was once a second home.

“It was one of the showplaces in the state of Oklahoma,” Holdridge said. “It was so nice. At that time, it was nicer than anything they had in Oklahoma City. It was a landmark.”

Holdridge's cousin worked in the hotel's bathhouse when Holdridge was young, allowing her free roam of the place as a child. She remembers napping on the massage tables, befriending the staff and roller skating along the sidewalk outside.

The hotel was a hot spot for local and national celebrities, including a parade of local politicians, former President William H. Taft and entertainers Roy Rogers, Gene Autry and Dale Evans. When Holdridge was older, actor John Wayne visited the hotel and autographed a card for her son.

Out of the ashes

Holdridge was there the day the hotel burned. Driving into town late one evening, she and her husband were met with the blaze.

Lannom remembers the fire as well. Her husband worked for the park service and helped fight the flames for two days and two nights, she said. By the time the fire was extinguished, the hotel had burned to the ground.

Sulphur residents would move over the rubble for the next few days, collecting surviving bricks to remember the hotel, said Mary Lou Heltzel, a historian at the Arbuckle Historical Society.

Residents said the loss of the hotel was a blow.

“Well, it broke my heart. I had practically been raised in it, and to see it burn to the ground was heartbreaking,” Holdridge said.

The Artesian hotel was quickly replaced by the one-story Artesian Motor Inn. In 1972, the Chickasaw Nation bought the building, renaming it the Chickasaw Motor Inn. The purchase was the beginning of the tribe's future rejuvenation of Sulphur, a trend that picked up with the recent additions of the Chickasaw Cultural Center and new Artesian.

The new Artesian has turned into a focal point of the town's pride, a place for residents to remember their roots while also celebrating where they are now.

Starns said when the hotel opened it was flooded with residents bringing in artifacts from the original Artesian, offering photos, key fobs, silverware, tile work, pamphlets, an old crystal coffee pot, an antique phonograph and the bricks left in the rubble. Due to space, they couldn't accept everything, but Starns said the artifacts must have numbered in the hundreds.

The decades following the Artesian fire marked an economic slump for Sulphur, Muncrief said. The recreation area still brought tourists, but, from his perspective, the town he had grown up in had lost some of its character. More chain restaurants entered the town, and older areas were not maintained as well, he said.

Since the new Artesian opened, several new businesses have come to the town, and properties have been opened for future leases, said Melissa Pratt, executive director of the Murray County Development Authority. Muncrief said the historic part of town has taken strides to renovate storefronts, slowly giving the town a “face-lift,” he said.

The hotel also is engaged with the community of Sulphur. It holds events for Christmas and the Fourth of July as well as an art festival, all of which bring together thousands of locals, Starns said. The new hotel also hosts Sulphur High School's proms, renewing a tradition from the original Artesian.

“It's like a piece of the city's heart is back,” Starns said. “Much like every Oklahoman takes to the Oklahoma City Thunder … it's really the same in Sulphur. It's like you have some part of ownership in the Artesian. That's how important the facility has become to the city, and we love that.”

If you go

The Artesian Hotel, Casino and Spa

Where: 1001 W First St., Sulphur, OK 73086.

Call: (855) 455-5255.

Online: artesianhotel.com.

Artesian Casino In Sulphur Oklahoma

Related Photos

Artesian Casino In Sulphur Oklahoma

The current Artesian's lobby. [Photo provided]

Artesian Casino Sulphur Oklahoma