BEDFORD, Pa. — For nearly two decades, every time the alarm rang out from Bedford Fire Department No. 1, people in town would say a little prayer that the call wasn’t for the old Bedford Springs Hotel — a primarily wooden structure built when Thomas Jefferson was president that was sitting abandoned just a mile outside town.
Bedford resident Bette Slayton said, “We would be in town and hear the fire whistle go off and look at each other and just cross our fingers that it wasn’t the Springs.”
Any time she had to head south along old U.S. 220 past the white-columned hotel, she would gaze at the rows of wooden porches jutting from the building and imagined them waiting for families or couples to host again. The sight of it succumbing to time and neglect hurt her heart. “It was so sad because this hotel is really the heart and soul of the community,” said Slayton….
