Exactly when Barker opened Barker Springs is not known, but by the early 1890s it had become a recreational destination. For several Sundays in May 1891 a driver known as “Papa Newman” operated a 10-mile-round-trip, one-dollar excursion from Arlington Hotel at 19th and Chester in Bakersfield to “Fabulous Barker Springs.” On the Fourth of July 1891 a Californian reporter observed merrymakers on Barker’s rafts surrounded by “swarms of festive grasshoppers.” Visitors also came to the springs to hear 60-year-old Captain John Barker recite Milton, Poe, and Scott and entertain his guests with recollections of early Kern and Tulare Counties.