Hot Springs to Resort

Hot Springs to Resort. . , In the summer of 1861, Edward Berthoud camped by the hot springs near this bend in the Grand River (it would become the Colorado in the 20th century). Berthoud and his expedition formed the Middle Park Claim Club and made tentative plans for Grand City, where the town of Hot Sulphur Springs is now. , The Civil War called Berthoud away to the border of Missouri by 1862, and William Newton Byers, founder of the Rocky Mountain News in Denver, became the most influential promoter of a resort area and town near the hot springs along the Grand River, both of which were established by the early 1870s., When the noted photographer William Henry Jackson passed through Hot Sulphur Springs in August of 1874 under the auspices of the Hayden Survey, William Newton Byers had finished a log hotel and started work on an upgraded, fully enclosed bathhouse for the bubbling hot baths. , Like today, the hot springs drew visitors throughout the summer months to Hot Sulphur Springs. Some of the first businesses included hotels, saloons and blacksmith shops. When the first stagecoach operations began in the mid-1870s, the need for full-time, year-round blacksmiths increased, as did the number of people who lived in Hot Sulphur Springs throughout the year. , William Ganson had built a hotel in Hot Sulphur Springs by the end of 1874. The Kinney family, who were some of the earliest settlers, followed close behind in 1875 with the Kinney House. As you can see in the photo (notice the bicycles), from its earliest days the Town of Hot Sulphur Springs accommodated tourists who sought recreation. , [sidebar] Official local government for Grand County began at Hot Sulphur Springs in 1874, but before that time, early settlers and intrepid summer tourists gathered near the hot springs along the Grand River. During the summer of 1868, for example, three influential Republican leaders , Schuyler Colfax (U.S. Grant's vice president during his first term), William Bross (Lieutenant Governor of Illinois), and Samuel Bowles (Editor-in-Chief of the Springfield, Massachusetts Republican) stayed at the hot springs while traveling through Colorado Territory on an extended summer vacation. While camping near the Grand River, they met William Newton Byers, John Wesley Powell, who was preparing to begin his famous 1869 expedition of the Colorado River, and a large encampment of Ute Indians.