The Great Spirit Spring Company was incorporated circa 1874; the board of directors included A.J. Dietrick, Eli Burton Parsons, A.J. Mitchener, and A.A. Thomas, among others, all individuals who resided in Pennslyvania (Troy, Wilkes-Barre), New York, Washington, D.C. and other locations in the eastern United States and who primarily held occupations as lawyers. Eli Burton Parsons (1824-1910) had been involved in businesses located at the Minnequa Springs in Bradford County, Pennsylvania and the Watkins Glen spa in New York; Mitchener resided in Watkins Glen, New York.

The purpose of the corporation was to furnish bathhouses at the Great Spirit Springs (also known as Waconda Springs) near Cawker City in Mitchell County, Kansas and to transport and sell mineral water from those springs elsewhere in the United States. "Waconda" comes from a Kansa word meaning "Great Spirit," and the springs were used by several Great Plains Native American tribes as neutral territory and a religious site. After Mitchell County was opened to Euro-American settlement in 1870, these white settlers used the site as a health spa and the water as a medicinal to cure a variety of ills. The Springs were purchased by the Cawker City Mineral Company to harvest salt. That endeavor failed, and the Springs were purchased by a bottling company. The Great Spirit Spring Company built a resort in the 1880s on the land.

A.J. Dietrick died in the 1880s; A.J. Mitchener then served as president of the Great Spirit Spring Company. [John] Piper (he typically signed his letters "Jno Piper") was local agent, overseeing the resort and the bottling operations in Mitchell County; Kelley and Thorp of Cawker City served as local legal counsel. The company struggled with delinquent taxes for several years.

In 1907, Dr. G.F. Abraham of Mankato, Jewell County, Kansas turned the resort into a health spa. The Abraham family ran the spa until 1964. In the 1960s the springs were flooded after a dam was built on the Solomon River in order to create a reservoir for flood control. The springs are now part of Waconda Lake at Glen Elder State Park.

[Information for this note retrieved from Kansapedia, "Waconda Springs," https://www.kshs.org/kansapedia/waconda-springs/16720 and Humanities Kansas, "Waconda Springs, From Sacred to Submerged," https://www.humanitieskansas.org/get-involved/kansas-stories/nature/waconda-springs-from-sacred-to-submerged.]