BALLSTON SPA, a village and the county-seat of Saratoga county, New York, U.S.A., about 7 m. S. of Saratoga Springs. Pop. (1890) 3527; (1900) 3923; (1910 U.S. Census) 4138. It is served by the Delaware & Hudson railway, and is connected with Saratoga Springs, Albany, and Schenectady by electric lines. There are several manufacturing establishments, among which are one of the largest manufactories of paper-bags in the United States and a large tannery. It is, however, as a popular summer resort that Ballston Spa is best known. Many fine chalybeate and other springs rising through solid rock from a depth of about 650 ft. furnish a highly effervescent water of considerable medicinal and commercial value. The village has the Ballston Spa public library, the Saratoga county law library and the Saratoga county court house. Ballston Spa, which was named in honour of the Rev. Eliphalet Ball, an early settler, was settled about 1787 by the grandfather of Stephen A. Douglas, and was incorporated in 1855.
See E. F. Prose, Centennial Hist. of Ballston Spa, 1908.