The original vintage postcard from 1910 shows the Great Pagosa Spring at Pagosa Springs, Colorado deep blue and green colors.
The card reads, “Pagosa Spring is one of the worlds largest mineral hot springs located on the outskirts of Pagosa Springs on the bank of the San Juan River. This picturesque town is at the western end of Wolf Creek Pass on Highway U.S. 160 in a region of beautiful hills and timber.”
The history of the Pagosa Spring comes from ancient Native American legend. Local people tell of a terrible plague which hit the tribe. The Medicine Man was unable to cure the people with traditional methods, so the tribe gathered along the banks of the San Juan River to pray and give worship to their gods in ceremonial dance. The people prayed and danced until they fell asleep from exhaustion. When they awoke the next morning, they felt their prayers had been answered in the miracle of bubbling water that was coming form beneath their burned out ceremonial fires. Believing this to be the answer to their prayers, the people began to bath themselves with the warm water and found that it cured the sickness that had plagued them. The bubbling waters were called Pag-Osah or “Healing Waters”, and the great Pagosa Spring became a sacred place of peace and healing.
When the first white men came across the Great Pagosa Hot Spring over one hundred fifty years ago, they noticed the ground around the pool to be packed by human foot prints with paths radiating out from the seventy-five foot diameter bubbling pool like spokes from the hub of a wheel. Local Native American people had been enjoying the waters of this natural hot mineral spring for generations by this time.
Today, the Great Pagosa Spring is a resort and hotel where people can still bath in the warm mineral spring waters and enjoy their healing properties.