STEAMBOAT – A RICH HISTORY

Nestled in the wide, open spaces of the Yampa valley on the western slope of the Continental Divide, Steamboat Springs has long been known for it’s western hospitality.

Long before Steamboat Springs became the world-class resort it is today, the Ute Indians adopted the area as their summer home. The Yampa Valley was the summer hunting grounds of the Ute Indians for hundreds of years. The first white men passed through the area in the early 1800s. The name Steamboat Springs is said to have originated in the 1820s when three French trappers traveling along the Yampa River heard a “chug, chug” sound. Thinking they had reached a major river one yelled, “a Steamboat, by gar!” Upon further investigation, they discovered the sound came from a natural mineral spring, to be named the Steamboat Spring. The town that grew up around that spring became Steamboat Springs. The Steamboat Spring still sits at the far end of town; however, it ceased to “chug” when the railroad bed was laid above it in 1908.

It wasn’t until 1875 that the first permanent settler, James Crawford brought his family to this area. Crawford lived peaceably among the Ute Indians, who annually visited the “medicine springs.” After the removal of the Indians from Colorado in 1880 following the battle at Milk Creek, other settlers gradually joined the Crawfords. By 1885 five other families had settled in the area.

The earliest mail service (from Georgetown) was by skis or snowshoes in winter, horseback or afoot in summer. Extension of the Rio Grande Railroad from Leadville to Wolcott in 1888 saw the establishment of a regular stage line, with coaches in the summer and sleds in the winter. This provided both passenger and mail service. The stage line was much improved in 1890 when the state bridged the Grand River, now the Colorado River.

From the earliest times, one of the town’s greatest attractions was the Bath House, supplied with natural hot mineral spring water. On this same site on the east end of Lincoln Avenue, the Steamboat Springs Health and Recreation Association operates the spring fed pools currently in use.

Major improvements to the town occurred in the late 1880s, including the building of the Sheridan Hotel, a fine sawed log a structure built by Henry Schaff on the west end of town, and the first bridge across the Bear (now Yampa) River near the Bath House in 1889. Neither of these structures remains today.