ABOUT JANE

Jane Baldwin, Mother, M.A., Anthropology/Archaeology,  teacher, healer, yoga therapist, and writer.  When she’s not writing, traveling and teaching the pranayama breathwork, enjoying guests at the Double J, and spending time with Ruby and Jimmy; Jane loves to spend time walking in nature, kayaking on the river, and being in the garden with the plants and the chickens.  She recently completed a children’s book called Ruby Red Dragonfly, about the adoption of Ruby, her daughter with Jimmy.  She is currently at work on an upcoming book about healing from cancer.  Before motherhood and the hospitality business, Jane worked as an archaeologist in Colorado, New Mexico, Guatemala, and Belize.

ABOUT JIMMY

Jimmy Baldwin is an Americana Top 40 singer-songwriter and creative director at the Richard’s Group in Dallas, Texas.  His award-winning commercials for Motel 6 and Corona Beer earned him international recognition in the world of advertising.  Jimmy has recorded three independent albums as a solo Americana artists.  With the recent release of his third solo recording, Vivador, Jimmy continues to hone his craft of visual storytelling through music.  jimmybmusic.com,

Jimmy and Jane discovered the Seybold Guest Ranch on location for a music video shoot for Jimmy’s single, My Lone Star, off Jimmy’s first album.

   

The Double J Hacienda & Art Ranch was built in the early 1940’s as The Seybold Guest Ranch.  Elmer Seybold was given a blank check by his oil man father, the story goes, to find the land upon which to build his dream home.  “I found the prettiest spot in one of the most beautiful counties in Texas,” he would boast to visitors.  Elmer, a nationally known sharp shooter and horseman and his wife Dorothee, an international fashion model, hosted  many distinguished guests including celebrities such as John Wayne, Bette Davis, and President and Nancy Reagan.

Elmer Seybold was well known and well respected for many talents which  would have been commonplace one hundred years earlier.  He was a master blacksmith, gunsmith and horseman -- making his own knives, whips, guns, saddles, and horseshoes.  In 1952 he founded the North Texas Farrier School which he ran at the Seybold Guest Ranch until his retirement at age 82 in 1995.

The land along the Brazos River has a history rich with legendary stories of nomadic Comanche, tenacious cattle-driving cowboys and healing mineral waters.  Quanah Parker, the last Comanche chief, roamed these hill as legendary cowboys Charles Goodnight and Oliver Loving blazed the Goodnight-Loving Trail transporting cattle from South Texas to New Mexico.

Mineral Wells was founded in the late 19th century by a judge who drilled a water well and found that the water within it cured his rheumatism.  One of the many wells that had been dug cured a woman of her crazy fits and thereafter became known as the Crazy Well.  The town thrived for many decades as a health resort center.

By the early 20th century  400 wells operated, many of them as part of health spas and bathhouses.  At that time  Mineral Wells was known as, “the South’s greatest health resort.”  The golden age of Mineral Wells as a healing center ended in 1930’s.  With the Great Depression and the FDA’s tightening regulations on natural healing therapies, Mineral Wells almost lost a significant facet of its infrastructure. 

As the popularity of natural healing therapies and health consciousness increases so does interest in the rich history of the healing waters.  The Famous Mineral Water Co, established in 1904, is the only remaining namesake of the town.  Famous Water, bottled at the source in Mineral Wells, can be purchased at Whole Foods Groceries across Texas.