History
Old Town Hot Springs is an historic hot spring and family-friendly recreational facility in the heart of Steamboat Springs, Colorado. We have been a location for recreation and rejuvenation in this community since its beginnings. The hot mineral spring pools have been here in one form or another for over 100 years. The Ute Indians who first settled the area knew them as “medicine” springs, frequenting them for sacred physical and spiritual healing. Later the pools were likely a gathering and bathing place for the first homesteaders. We are lucky to have the famous Heart Spring, the source of all the healing mineral water in our eight pools. It pumps approximately 220 gallons per minute and comes out of the ground like an artesian well, thus naturally without the use of man-made pumps. The water then runs into an overflow system filling each of the pools on the property.
Timeline
OTHS History
The City’s founder, James Crawford, discovered the spring and called it the “Bath Spring”. The first log structure was built in 1885 but was then boarded over and a newer frame building was constructed in 1887.
$50,000 was invested to build the new bath house and the outdoor swimming pool was completed in 1910.
The view of Lincoln Ave. from the original 1909 pool.
The indoor bath house.
H.W. Gossard surrounded the Bath Spring with a stone wall in the shape of a heart and renamed it the Heart Spring. He named the development around the Heart Spring The Rocky Mountain Miriquelle Spa with the plan to bottle the mineral water as a health product. Then the Great
Gossard returned control of the hot springs to the Steamboat Springs Town Company, who sold it to the newly formed non-profit corporation, Steamboat Springs Health and Recreation Association SSHRA. SSHRA also owned the Strawberry Park Hot Springs.
Marvin Crawford skiing into hot springs pool. According to “The History of Skiing at Steamboat Springs,” the hill behind the pool hosted “snowaqua” skiing in the 1940s.
A friend took a morning dip in the pool.
The city condemned the 1909 bathhouse and indoor pools for health reasons so a new facility was built and the outdoor pool was remodeled with the same footprint as the original 1909 pool. The first lifetime memberships were created to help finance some of the construction.
The first water slide was constructed on the hill next to the pools. In the same year, SSHRA sold the Strawberry Park Hot Springs to Chicago-based businessman Don Johnson.
A 7000 sq. ft. building with locker rooms, offices, an exercise room, and a second floor deck replaced the bath house building that was built in 1968.
The Heart Spring was renovated.
In 1991, the building was renovated to include additional exercise space and a new lobby.
The divider between the lap pool and shallow pool was installed, with several other renovations.
The tennis courts were removed from the current upper parking lot, making room for 55 additional parking spaced and rebuilt on newly purchased land of Fish Creek Falls Road. In 2017, those tennis courts were remove to provide additional parking spaces.
SSHRA adopted the business trade name “Old Town Hot Springs”.
The hot spring pool was renovated to include five new pools, new water slides, an aquatic climbing wall, and more natural-looking construction/landscaping.
The facility building was renovated to add 15,000 additional sq. ft., a state-of-the-art gym, indoor climbing wall, massage suites, and a community room.