When the Ute tribe inhabited the area, they held in high esteem a hot water spring in Glenwood Canyon which they called Yampah, for Big Medicine. The Utes believed that the water had miraculous healing powers and braves and their horses bathed in the hot water pools and spent time in the vapor caves underground to regain their strength.
Captain Richard Sopris was the first European to visit the area, thus the 12,953 foot mountain which towers over the valley is named after him.
In 1883, the town was established by the name Defiance which lasted for just two years until it was changed to Glenwood Springs by the wife of a town founding father who was nostalgic for her home town of Glenwood, Iowa. Glenwood Springs became famous in Western lore as the residence of Doc Holiday who survived the Shootout at the OK Corral and came to Glenwood Springs to soak in the hot pools in order to ease his advanced case of tuberculosis. Doc died at the Glenwood Hotel in 1887, the same year that the Ute tribe was forever banished to a reservation.
In the 1890s some of Glenwood Springs' most famous Victoria era buildings were constructed, the Hotel Colorado and the Hot Springs Pool. The luxurious casino and fine accoutrements attracted a monied clientele from across the continent and as far away as Europe.
Known as The Spa in the Rockies, Glenwood Springs' facilities attracted historical figures as Al Capone, the Unsinkable Molly Brown, and presidents William Taft and Theodore Roosevelt.
There were some attempts to establish skiing at Glenwood Springs as early as 1940, but all of them failed until the Sunlight Mountain Resort was opened in 1966. Today, Glenwood Springs is a lovely old Western town energized by the enthusiastic and well-off patrons who come from all over the world to ski Sunlight.
Fishing the Roaring Fork Valley - Glenwood Springs, Colorado
