— Subscribe to this topic on PagosaSUN.comHot springs, hot water and high hopes
We’ve been writing about the sundry and various claims used by Pagosa Country pioneers in an effort to obtain title to the Great Pagosa Hot Springs. Complicating the whole picture…
Hot springs, hot water and high hopes
A major problem of concern to the pioneer citizens of Pagosa Springs was solving the riddle of who owned the Pagosa Hot Springs, plus who owned the property where the…
Hot springs and high hopes
By May of 1881, Pagosa Springs could boast of its first bathhouse, a frame building erected by Thomas Blair. It had a large plunge bath, fully 4.5 feet deep, and…
Hot springs and high hopes
Daisy Opdyke Fitzhugh, who as a small girl moved with her family to Pagosa Springs in 1879, years later recalled the bathing routine. “We would go in the morning and…
Hot water and high hopes
When mining activities increased in the upper Animas River mining camps during the early 1870s, supporting communities sprouted in the lower Animas River Valley. Because the growing season was longer…
High hopes and hot water
What did the Pagosa Hot Springs look like in 1878 before people commenced messing around with the natural contours? For our description, we again rely on the professional eyes of…
High hopes and hot water
I closed last week’s column with the important news in 1878 that the Army was getting ready to build a fort at Pagosa Springs. Why an Army fort at such…
High hopes and hot water
I’ve completed writing about “Traipsin’, tradin’ and explorin’.” For our next subject, here comes “High hopes and hot water.” A trail-worn prospector bound for Baker’s Park camped near the Great…
Traipsin’, tradin’ and explorin’
As we ended last week’s column, most of the able-bodied men in the West had returned to the East and South to fight in the Civil War. Not surprisingly, the…
Traipsin’, tradin’ and explorin’
Last week in the latest of my series of columns describing the earliest explorers to visit the Pagosa Hot Springs, we featured Capt. John M. Macomb, a topographical engineer with…
