The city received international attention in 1893 at the Chicago's World Fair when medals were awarded for the iron-manganese water from the Regent Spring and Soterian ginger ale. October 1893 brought more train service to the city with the opening of the Sulpho-Saline route connecting to the Wabash line. Fires destroyed the Excelsior Hotel and the Elms Hotel, leaving only boarding houses to take in visitors. Plans were soon drawn up for the rebuilding of the Elms Hotel. The "Second" Elms Hotel was finished in 1908, but was soon destroyed again by fire. The third and present-day Elms Hotel was constructed in 1912. Also built were the Wholf's Tavern (later renamed Royal Hotel) and Snapp Hotel (later renamed Oaks Hotel). By 1909, the growing city boasted 14 modern hotels and about 200 boarding and rooming houses. The development of a park system was approved as well, costing $200,000 at the time. This brought the Excelsior Springs Golf Course and the construction of many structures including the Masonic Hall, auditorium, Odd Fellows Building, and Morse buildings. Hourly transportation on the Kansas City interurban railroad began in January 1912. The expansion of public utilities and a system of highways connecting Excelsior Springs and Kansas City helped the city thrive. The Great Depression did not have the impact on Excelsior Springs as it had on several other communities, surviving mostly due to its health resort status. Between 1930 and 1940, the town gained 370 citizens, reporting 4,800 total at the end of the decade, when populations in most other small towns were declining. In November 1931, one of the most intense gun battles happened at the historic Elms Hotel. Four robbers attempted to hold up the hotel and managed to flee by automobile, which were followed by local law enforcement. Gunshots were exchanged in the hotel lobby and veranda. The four criminals fled to nearby Kansas City, but were later apprehended. In 1932, Mafia gangster Lonnie Affronti shot Azalea Ross and her husband in an ambush shoot-out on Route 10. Ross was the chief witness in a narcotics trial against Affronti. The gangland aided in hiding Affronti for five years before he was captured in Brooklyn, New York, in 1937. One of his accomplices during the shoot-out, Charley Harvey, was apprehended and killed himself in the city jail a short time later. The present city hall, the Hall of Waters, was constructed between 1936 and 1938 by architects Keene & Simpson above the Siloam and Sulpho-Saline Springs.