Established only three years apart in the 1880s, Glenwood Hot Springs Resort (1888) and the community of Glenwood Springs, Colorado (1885) are aging in style. Together, they deliver the perfect place to experience fascinating local history and soothing mineral hot springs made possible by the resort’s on-site Yampah Source Spring, named and discovered much earlier by the Ute Indian Tribe.
Create your own historic moment – Glenwood Hot Springs Resort
Longevity doesn’t mean static or dated. A multiyear improvement plan at Glenwood Hot Springs Resort leans into the property’s rich heritage and has added new amenities appealing to today’s locals and travelers. The latest is the poolside Hotel 1888, which opened in the resort’s historic Stone Bath House on June 12, 2025.
Hotel 1888 is a perfect place to experience history and hot springs in Glenwood Springs. The boutique hotel’s name comes from the fact that the resort opened to great fanfare on July 4, 1888. When guests stay in one of Hotel 1888’s 16 luxurious guest rooms, including two suites, they immediately have a glimpse of this iconic Colorado attraction’s history. Architectural details are a focal point and the artwork throughout features collected artifacts, postcards and photos, with several sourced from the collections of Glenwood Springs Historical Society and Denver Public Library.
All Hotel 1888 guests are invited to relax in European-style elegance with complimentary breakfast, unlimited soaking in the seven mineral hot springs pools during business hours, and access to the full-service Athletic Club also located in the Stone Bath House.
Stone Bath House History
Features like the original fireplace in Hotel 1888’s spacious 1888 Suite echo back to a time when the Stone Bath House building was designed by Austrian architect Theodore von Rosenberg. Constructed using sandstone from the former Peach Blow Quarry near Basalt, the Stone Bath House originally featured a billiard parlor, gentlemen’s casino, reading room, physician’s office, smoking room, coffee kitchen, and 42 interior Roman baths and dressing rooms. Guests enjoyed the luxury of electric lighting, private call bells that rang bath house attendants, and hot and cold running water inside the building.
On display in the lobbies of Hotel 1888 and the Athletic Club are items that provide a glimpse of the resort’s rich history and displays by the Glenwood Springs Historical Society. When visiting the hot springs pools or the Athletic Club from now through Sept. 30, 2025, see a Salt Lake City 2002 Olympic Winter Games torch that traveled through Glenwood Springs on Feb. 2, 2002, after a trek through 45 states.
Instead of wearing the official white sweatsuit, one of the Glenwood Springs torchbearers, George DiCarlo, wore an all-black Speedo and swam the lone aquatic leg of the entire 2002 torch relay in the Grand Pool at Glenwood Hot Springs Resort. DiCarlo, who grew up in Denver and won a gold medal in the 400-meter freestyle and a silver in the 1,500-meter freestyle race at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Games, held the torch on his stomach and used a one-handed backstroke to make his way across the 405-foot-long pool in front of 1,500 spectators, reported the Deseret News. “I ran the torch through Denver in ’96, but this is so much more exciting. This ranks on par with participating in the opening ceremonies in L.A.,” DiCarlo said.
Later, Olympian Rulon Gardner, who won a gold medal at the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games in a huge wrestling match upset, carried the flame to the Glenwood Springs Community before it left on a route to Grand Junction and arrived in Salt Lake City on Feb. 3. “Also participating were our friends and neighbors, people picked to carry the torch because they are inspirations to others,” noted an article in the local Post Independent.
In October, the Athletic Club lobby display will focus on the historical society’s popular Ghost Walk.
Additional Resort Upgrades
Hotel 1888 is just one of two options for staying overnight at this hot springs property. The Lodge at Glenwood Hot Springs Resort, located on the hillside overlooking the pools, also offers the ultimate in comfort. A total refresh of all 107 Lodge guest rooms and suites wrapped up in March 2025.
Yampah Mineral Baths, introduced on the east end of the resort’s pool complex in May 2024, features five spacious pools of varying temperatures (including two cold plunge pools), waterfalls, a grotto, a fireplace with lounging area and more. Yampah Mineral Baths is open to all guests with a pool pass and becomes adults only at 5 p.m. As part of the Yampah Mineral Baths project, the area around Yampah Source Spring was landscaped, the historic drinking spring reopened, and signage installed to tell the history of Glenwood Hot Springs Resort.
The first phase of the improvement plan introduced Sopris Splash Zone on the west end in 2019 to deliver a completely new experience for families. This area includes a whitewater river tube ride, the lighted Grand Fountain that serves as a splash pad during the day, and a children’s pool with three small slides, waterfalls, shallow play areas and more. Phase two wrapped up in 2022 and included major upgrades to the Therapy Pool and all changing rooms.
Glenwood Hot Springs Resort also has a gift shop, poolside Grill and Snack Bar, and Red Brick Eats food truck that is open in the summer. The resort is conveniently linked to historic downtown Glenwood Springs by a pedestrian bridge that borders the west end of the pool.
A town is born and develops – Defiance becomes Glenwood Springs
The Historically Landmarked & Significant Places booklet published in 2015 by the Glenwood Springs Historic Preservation Commission describes the community’s rich and colorful heritage and spotlights significant buildings and attractions such as Glenwood Hot Springs Resort.
To fully experience history and hot springs, also download the Walking Tour Guide of Historic Glenwood Springs by Glenwood Springs Historical Society to check out other historic sites and read more about the history of Glenwood Hot Springs Resort and Hotel Colorado. There are many interesting facts and colorful characters from a rowdy frontier town that aptly started out with the name Defiance and by 1883 was full of miners, trappers, traders, gunslingers, prostitutes and other citizens.
Early Days & Innovators
In 1860, Captain Richard Sopris and a party of geologic explorers noticed Yampah Source Spring and named the place Grand Springs. Permanent settlements in the area started to pop up in 1880, and James Landis homesteaded 160 acres that included most of the hot springs area in 1881. The fascinating history of Glenwood Hot Springs Resort begins in 1886 when Walter Devereux, an engineer and silver baron, and his two brothers bought Yampah Source Spring and 10 acres of land from Captain Isaac Cooper.
As part of the plan to transform Glenwood Springs into a world-renowned healing center in the mountains, Glenwood Hot Springs Company led by Devereux hatched the idea to build a grand hotel in the early 1890s. Construction of Hotel Colorado began in 1891 with the property’s Italianate architecture modeled after the Villa de Medici in Italy and designed by New York architects Boring, Tilton & Mellon. Opening across from the pool in 1893, no expense was spared. The neighboring Yampah Spa and Vapor Caves also dates to 1893 and was part of Devereux’s vision.
Hotel Colorado has undergone its own transformation that respects the property’s rich tradition and is a great place to have a drink in the spacious front courtyard, a meal at the hotel’s restaurant, and a coffee drink at Legends Coffee & Gift Shop. During the holiday season, don’t miss the grand lighting ceremony and the beautiful seasonal decor inside and out at Hotel Colorado.
Cooper and Devereux also embarked on civic projects that brought water, electricity and railroads to Glenwood Springs. Near the north end of today’s Grand Avenue, Devereux erected a coal-fired, steam-driven electric power plant, making Glenwood Springs one of the first towns in Colorado to be supplied with commercially available electricity starting in 1886.
Railroad service and local commerce
The Denver & Rio Grande (D&RG) and Colorado Midland Railroad began railroad service to Glenwood Springs in 1887, both striving to be the first. Today, travelers can reach Glenwood Springs on Amtrak’s California Zephyr and Rocky Mountaineer’s “Rockies to the Red Rocks” train routes. Theodore von Rosenberg, the architect for Glenwood Hot Springs Resort’s Stone Bath House, also designed the Denver & Rio Grande Depot that opened in 1904 and is still in use today only a few blocks from the resort.
Early on, the local economy also was fueled by coal mining, commerce, outdoor recreation, farming and ranching. The annual Strawberry Days festival still held in June began in 1898 as a marketing effort to promote fruit growers in the Roaring Fork and Grand River valleys.
As word of the hot springs pool, grand hotel and growing community spread, wealthy Victorians, aristocrats, political leaders, movie stars and spiritual believers ventured to Glenwood Springs from around the world. However, the hot springs pool and Hotel Colorado transformed into a U.S. Naval Convalescent Hospital from 1943 to 1946, providing a place for sailors injured during World War II to recuperate (up to 500 at a time).
After the war and until the early 1950s, the hotel was converted into a private hospital, Glenwood Clinic. Since then, there have been a variety of owners of Hotel Colorado, the most recent being the Melville family who purchased the property in 2018. Jumping back a bit, Frank Kistler purchased the pool in 1938 and sold it to a group of local businessmen in 1954; their families continue to operate Glenwood Hot Springs Resort today.
Where to learn more about Glenwood Springs history
The Glenwood Springs Historical Society has two locations to explore in Glenwood Springs: Frontier Museum, a furnished 1905 Victorian-style home at 1001 Colorado Ave., and the Doc Holliday Collection located on the lower level of Bullocks Western Wear at 732 Grand Ave. John “Doc” Holliday was a gambler, gunslinger and dentist who landed in Glenwood Springs seeking a cure from tuberculosis and died here in 1887.
Other historic downtown buildings house restaurants, bars, distillery and brewery tasting rooms, and a wide range of shops. Consider buying tickets to a Glenwood Vaudeville Revue show and catch a glimpse of a rare 1918 Wurlitzer Photoplayer.
Another important figure in Glenwood Springs history is Charles W. Darrow, who was an attorney by trade and an avid explorer and entrepreneur. He opened the Fairy Caves, now part of Glenwood Caverns Adventure Park, to visitors in 1895 and added electric lighting, a new technology at the time. The caves closed in 1910, remaining private until Steve and Jeanne Buckley purchased then in 1998.
Long waits for Fairy Caves tours inspired the Buckleys to install their first amusement rides in 2005, and the attraction became known as Glenwood Caverns Adventure Park, which has greatly expanded over the years and now also includes a King’s Row Cave Tour. The Fairy Caves Tour includes a historic lighting section called History Lane, which is illuminated with replica Edison and Marconi-style light bulbs.
Visit Linwood Cemetery—best known as the final resting place of Doc Holliday—any time of year but an ideal time is during the Historic Ghost Walk offered by the Glenwood Springs Historical Society usually on the last two weekends of October. Meander up the hill by lantern light to the cemetery, where costumed actors portray pioneers from Glenwood Springs’ past.
Experience history and hot springs in Glenwood Springs all year long. The community and Glenwood Hot Springs Resort beautifully meld past and present, offering outdoor recreation, revitalizing hot spring waters, and other pastimes that make it a sought-after Colorado mountain destination.
