Glenwood Springs, The History of a Rocky Mountain Resort

Glenwood Springs: The History of a Rocky Mountain Resort is Jim Nelson's history of a community that, as the description puts it, doesn't stop at the city limits. Alongside the town itself, he covers nearby Glenwood Canyon, the geology of the surrounding mountains, and the lives of some of its colorful inhabitants.

The time frame is unusually wide. A Goodreads summary says the book reaches from events about 300 million years ago to recent times, so rock and rivers sit beside settlement, the railroad and the highway fights of the twentieth century. It is nonfiction, first published in 1999.

Other local writers lean on it. A Post Independent history column about the Glenwood Canyon interstate route quotes this book several times, including its figures on money spent on studies and design concepts and its date for the start of construction. That makes it a working reference for the canyon story as well as a book to read through.

This book is for people who live in or visit Glenwood Springs and want the story behind the hot springs town and its canyon. Local history readers will enjoy the mix of geology, canyon history and personalities. It also suits libraries and researchers following the interstate through Glenwood Canyon, since local writers have cited it on that subject. It is a book-length history, written by a resident rather than a visiting scholar.

Jim Nelson is an accountant, according to his Goodreads author profile, and writing is his passion. His books include fiction, photography and history, and many are set around Glenwood Springs, Marble and Redstone in Colorado and Tombstone in Arizona. The profile adds that he was appointed the official Alligator Control Warden of Garfield County. Goodreads warns that more than one author uses his name, so we rely on the profile attached to this book. His author page lists what we carry.

More about Jim Nelson →

Glenwood Springs began as Defiance, a camp of tents, saloons and brothels on land that was part of the Ute reservation. The Denver and Rio Grande narrow gauge railway reached the area from the east in 1881 on its way to Grand Junction. Isaac Cooper platted a settlement called Barlow, and his wife Sarah persuaded the founders to rename it for her hometown of Glenwood, Iowa. The post office took the Glenwood Springs name on March 28, 1884, and the town incorporated on September 4, 1885. President Theodore Roosevelt vacationed at the Hotel Colorado, and Doc Holliday spent his last months in town. The Shoshone hydroelectric plant in the canyon began producing power on May 16, 1909. The canyon later carried Interstate 70, which federal highway officials recommended in 1975, with construction starting in 1980.

Source: Wikipedia: Glenwood Springs, Colorado