discovered in 1792. it was found to be beneficial for certain diseases. and i'd like to say that congress park is a city park developed because of constipation. because that was a disease that itwas most likely used to treat . it was to spur a great development of hotels, boarding houses and businesses generally here in saratoga springs. there was nothing here until the first was discovered. in fact, we think that the mohawk and mohican indians came here only for the mineral springs.it was not a place where they can't particularly. perhaps they hunted here. so the first european americans came here in 1771. probably finding the spring in the course of surveying and providing land that had been very inappropriately taken from the mohawks. so what happened in the very beginning, 1772 was that the first people to come here built long cabins. and anyone who's heard about this medicinal qualities of water made their way here. paid a small sum of money to stay in one of these very rough long cabins and they gave in the spring or they drank it. but the water was still working and this was very dangerous territory so everything stopped for about seven years. even when it started off, it started off slowly. it wasn't until 1802 that gideon popping came here from connecticut and built the first hotel. originally called poppins tavern, later it was called union hall, finally became the grandview hotel and admin hotel, a big boost was 1832 when the railroad was built. it came from albany by way of schenectady. and immediately the number of people coming here boomed. the next big boom was after the civil war because there were all the fortunes made in the war with what's called shoddy which was cloth for the army.and petroleum was just beginning to be exploited. those people reach loved it here and they came in great numbers and that's when the union hall was expanded into the grand union hotel and the united states hotel burned in 1864 was rebuilt almost a decade later. and those two really good hotels were each over 800 fellows, they were a mess. there were six or seven stories high, right on the sidewalk. in the 1860s and 1870s. the very wealthy did not build solar homes. they did that later. but first, they rented suites and rooms in these two big hotels or sometimes the other larger hotels. and certainly commodore vanderbilt was one of the famous people who came here. at the same time this boom was taking place, racingwas getting going. it started in 1847 with the state fair but it was primarily heartless racing for the first 16 years. in 1863, john morrissey , a noted prizefighter and gambler began the racetrack. and this was a thoroughbred racing with chopping up and things really took off. they took up quite successfully. there were ups and downs , where track was set in stone in 1902 william collins whitney acquired it with his associates. from 1863 today the racetrack has been saratoga summers bread and butter. because in fact by that time the use of mineral waters for health purposes wasdeclining. the crowd that come here to stay often for four weeks at a time and a great hotel , no longer wanted to do that. they wanted new sites. and they had automobiles and of course that started with the very rich and trickle down first to the middle class and ultimately in let's say the late 40s to working people so it was progressive. but the hotel did not have private baths and in world war ii, it halted racing for three summers because of a it was impossible to get horses here with the travel restrictions.they raised in new york city instead when they would have raised here. the rest of therooms , they gave up on it saratoga for a while. the united states hotel was torn down in 1943, 44. right in the middle of the war. the hotel lived along until 53. then it was gone. when i was done, the largest hotel in town probably had 50 rooms. so it was really really a change. and then in the early 60s, search against came together and really in a grassroots effort, they pulled together to turn things around. and a number of things contributed.for one thing the interstate highway was built from albany, 1960 to 63. ultimately all the way to montrcal. that made coming here a lot easier and when i came in 1978, people of my generation had moved in, built rundown houses, rundown commercial buildings and everything was happening at once. it was an exciting time. that's almost 40 years ago. and today, saratoga is almost remarkably diverse city, economically. it is a college town, is a north town, light industrial town. it is the summer of albany. it really is wrong. and that part of the genius of success. it's a complete place. and we love it here. >> you are watching the tv on c-span2. here's our primetime lineup. in just a few minutes, journalist stephen strang and former trump campaign managers corey lewandowski and david bossi discussed the 2016 presidential election. then at 7:30, raise as long explores how believers 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