FEATURED ARTICLES

"Pagosa Hot Springs, The Carlsbad of America"

Prepared by E. Vail

Excerpts reprinted from the Pagosa Springs Herald, Spring 1896.

Compiled With Highest Regards for Facts From Official Government Reports and Other Authentic Sources.

Take the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad to Lumberton, N.M., then the Rio Grande and Pagosa Springs Railroad and Stage.

Pagosa Hot Springs, Colorado.

We don't use milk here - nothing but pure cream. There are lots of splendid ranches near town, and eggs, poultry and vegetables are always in good supply at reasonable prices. There is not another resort on the American continent where you may live so well and at the same time at so reasonable an expenditure of money.

Those who spend one season here will be sure to return again.


HOW TO REACH PAGOSA SPRINGS

The trip from Denver or other eastern Colorado points to Pagosa Springs is the most delightful, instructive and wildly romantic railroad journey on this or any other continent. Truly the Denver & Rio Grande has been appropriately named the "Scenic Line of the World." From the moment you begin the journey "Around the Circle" you are treated to a continuation of surprises and novelties. The road from Denver to Pueblo runs along the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, past grand and grizzled old Pike's Peak, and so on to Canon City, gradually preparing the sight-seer for the glimpses of wonderland. The passage through the Royal Gorge, Grand Canon of the Arkansas, begins here. Writers of song and story have tried to describe it; painters and photographers have attempted reproduction; but in its awe-inspiring majesty the Gorge defies the puny efforts of man to portray. You must see it to understand how wonderful are the works of nature. At Salida you take a comfortable narrow-gauge Pullman car, two or three powerful, solid "broncho" engines are hitched on, and you sail away into the clouds; now up a grade over Poncha Pass that seems to be an angle of 45 degrees; then down you slide for a hundred miles through the beautiful San Luis valley. Standing as a grim sentinel at the foot of the valley is Mount Blanco the highest peak in the state, 15,000 feet above the sea. From Antonito you begin to climb again, and like a huge serpent you little train winds in and out, up and down; through long tunnels and snowsheds; crossing and recrossing itself; over roaring mountain torrents thousands of feet below; one moment you are gazing at nature's spires, up till they seem to reach heaven's battlements, and a turn around a sharp point of rocks and you are gazing into a bottomless abyss, fathomless and dark as perdition itself. The pulse beats quicker; you enjoy a delightful sensation that is half fear, half pleasure, and still neither. If you took time to think you would know you were safe; but this is not a time or place for thought. The little engines groan and strain, you train seems to hug the granite cliffs closer, till another turn and you slip out on a level mesa, 10,000 feet above the sea. You are on top of the great Continental Divide. The journey down the western slope is a repetition of the ascent; if possible the scenery is more rugged, and after a hearty dinner at the excellent eating house at Chama, you have time for a cigar or a few moment's rest before you reach Lumberton, at which point you change cars and come ten miles to the end of the Pagosa Springs railroad. Here good conveyances are waiting for the tourists, and a ride of two hours amid balsam laden groves and beds of flowers, lands you at Pagosa Springs, the glow of health and new life in your cheeks, and new blood coursing through your veins. Paradise has been found.

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Pleasure!

What May be Seen and Enjoyed on a Trip to Pagosa Springs.

Pagosa Springs, Colorado, is nestled in a beautiful valley on the banks of the prettiest trout stream in the world, surrounded by mountains whose eternal snow-capped summits tower four or five thousand feet above the city. In summer time the surrounding foothills are solid beds of flowers, in which are represented almost every specimen of Colorado's wonderfully diversified blooming and exotic plants. It seems that old Dame Nature was in a particularly fickle mood when she located Pagosa, and tried to hide away this great natural curiosity, for it is far away from beaten paths in the extreme southwestern corner of Colorado, near the New Mexican line.

There are a thousand objects of attraction inn the immediate vicinity, but the main one of course is the "Great Pagosa," the largest, hottest, most surpassingly wonderful and awe-inspiring sight in the world. Imagine if you can a seething, boiling cauldron of hot water, 50x75 feet in size, from which flows a river three feet deep and ten feet wide, and you have in your mind a faint idea of the great Pagosa. A few sups of its "Healing Waters" (the Ute name) and a plunge in the pool, and you are a new man. The spring is bottomless; a stone weighing 150 pounds, attached to a rope, has gone down 850 feet and stopped from the force of the gasses. The theory is generally accepted by scientific men that the spring is of great antiquity, and is the crater of an extinct volcano. This theory may be easily accepted when it is known that the opening of the spring is on top of a mound forty feet higher than the surrounding country and composed of the same properties as flow from the spring today in solution.

The country round about is filled with wonders, and no races or tribes are so rich in traditions and legendary lore as are the Utes, the Navajos and the Apaches. The evidences are here of a civilization almost the equal of ours, that lived and loved and wrought and died so many generations ago that even tradition gives it no place of record. Southwestern Colorado and the adjacent portions of Utah once contained a population of 200,000 souls.

Are you fond of hunting and fishing? This is certainly the sprotsman's paradise. Bear, of the grizzly, black and cinnamon varieties, are found without much effort; elk, deer and mountain sheep have been so plentiful the past winter that they have bothered the ranchmen not a little, and they are so tame it doesn't seem like sport to kill them; Rocky mountain lions are occasionally encountered in the remote regions,and you can kill coyotes with a club. The turkeys are rather scarce this year, but the woods are full of grouse.

Is there good fishing? Well, we are strangers, and you will think this is a "fish story," but truth to tell, within ten miles of Pagosa there is the

FINEST FISHING IN THE WORLD

In the matter of living, Pagosa Springs combines the advantages of rural simplicity with the possibilities of the greatest eastern resorts. There are three excellent hotels, besides several high-class boarding houses and restaurants. The valleys are filled with nutritious grasses and the cattle raised here make the most delicious meats ever eaten.

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Health!

Dr. Weaver Speaks Glowingly of Pagosa as a Health Resort. --- "Carlsbad of America."

The cures reported by those who have been afflicted are really wonderful. Rheumatism, stomach trouble, blood and kidney diseases have been permanently relieved by use of these waters, without the aid of a physician. Sciatica and chronic cases of long standing rheumatism have been instantly relieved by taking the hot white mud baths, a deposit formed by the overflow from the Pagosa, or "Healing Water," as the word signifies in the Ute language.

The waters of Pagosa are without doubt the most wonderful and beneficial in medicinal effects that have ever been discovered. The mixing, or work of Nature's laboratory, is done far down in the caverns of the earth, and is done most efficiently and effectively. The following comparative analysis will show the similarity of the waters of the Pagosa and the Sprudel Spring, the most prominent of the group in Bohemia, Germany:

ANALYSIS OF PAGOSA SPRINGS WATER

(Pagosa Spring, Archuleta county, Colorado, as given by the chemical report of Dr. Charles Smart, U.S.A., and Prof. D.N. Lowe, and the United States Government Report of Hot Springs)

Grains in Litre (1.75 Pints) of Water
Sodium Chloride..................................13.380
Sodium Carbonate...............................18.025
Sodium Sulphate.................................32.730
Calcium Carbonate..............................9.040
Magnesium Carbonate.........................1.440
Lithium Carbonate...............................0.810
Potassium Carbonate...........................0.607
Iron Protoxide.......................................0.036
Manganese Protoxide...........................0.024
Calcium Fluoride..................................0.066
Calcium Phosphide..............................0.007
Silica....................................................0.135

Temperature of water, 165 deg. F.
Altitude, 7000 feet.

The following are extracts from the report of Dr. J.L. Weaver, surgeon of hospital, Western Branch National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers, Leavenworth, Kansas, to Colonel Andrew J. Smith, Governor of W.B.N.H.D.V.S., November 13, 1890:

"In obedience to you order, I proceeded June 23rd to Pagosa Springs, Colorado, with nineteen men selected for treatment at that point. Before leaving, a careful clinical history of each individual had been prepared. In the nineteen cases selected, care was exercised that while no prejudice should be done the experiment by sending hopeless incurables, yet that they should be such cases as had failed to yield to the usually accepted remedial agents. The entire length of time during which any of these men were at Pagosa was from June 23rd to October 18th, 1890.

An examination of the table below will show the character of the diseases the men had who were sent to Pagosa Springs to be treated:

RHEUMATIC CASES

Arthritis Deformans......................................3
Chronic arthritic rheumatism.......................1
Chronic arthritic rheumatism,
with habitual constipation............................1
Chronic rheumatism.....................................8
Chronic rheumatism,
with paraplegia.............................................1
Chronic rheumatism,
with chronic diarrhoea..................................1
Chronic eczema (general)..............................1
Chronic diarrhoea.........................................1
Secondary syphilis........................................1
Chronic gastric catarrh..................................1

The larger and more important class, that of rheumatism, it is perplexing to deal with: most of our cases, per necessitatis, are advanced in years, at least beyond the prime of life; several are of admitted syphilitic origin, and nearly all have existed, it is claimed, for many years. Leaving out all conjecture, it is safe to say that the fifteen cases of this character exhibit a more chronic and incurable nature than is usually met with. The result has far exceeded my expectations: with few exceptions they have returned greatly relieved of their pains; several who had almost immovable joints now find them supple and are able to work; others are convinced that a long residence would result in recovery.

In one case of chronic articular rheumatism in a patient of exceedingly plethoric habit, weight 223 pounds, the effect of the water was most markedly advantageous, and in my opinion due to the relief afforded the engorged viscera by the purgative-thermal effectual at Carlsbad. He reduced in flesh, his joints became supple, his gait and carriage greatly improved, he was free from all pain, and was able to perform many offices for himself, of which he had before been incapable. In another of this class, a man fifty-two years of age, the result was remarkable; besides chronic rheumatism, dating from 1865, he had many complications, not the least alarming of which was a decided tendency to brain disease. He has apparently recovered and has remained at the Springs, working regularly at his trade of blacksmithing.

Up to the present time these Springs have not had the scientific supervision or careful study requisite to determine their peculiar adaptation to disease. It has long been known that they possessed the virtue of a purgative thermal water, and although analysis has been made, the popular mind has not as yet been able to discriminate as to the proper classes of disease for which these waters are adapted. I am fully satisfied of the general purgative attributes and on looking over the analysis for comparison with other such water was impressed with the great similarity of these waters with those of the renowned Carlsbad Springs of Bohemia.

The highest authorities have for over four hundred years agreed as to the efficacy of the Carlsbad waters, and when it is acknowledged that Pagosa Springs possesses all the properties of this celebrated purgative thermal water, a wide field of usefulness in the treatment of the ills of mankind is found at our very doors.

The altitude of the Springs, 7,000 feet above sea level, the accompanying rarification and dryness of atmosphere while possessing most of the thermal and purgative qualities of other hot springs, render them particularly advantageous in many cases where a lower elevation portends only increased debility and, in many instances, death. Pagosa Springs, by reason of their great altitude and dryness of atmosphere, are free from many of these serious drawbacks and permit of the residence and treatment of most of these very diseases proscribed to other thermal springs. For instance, asthma seems to disappear merely from climatic influences; pulmonary consumption is usually benefited; nervous diseases, from the same causes, lose many of their terrors; in one case taken from here, an insomnia which had existed for many years immediately disappeared, the patient sleeping well on the first night, and the improvement has proven permanent. I think scaly skin diseases will meet with success, and in affections of the liver generally, chronic stomach trouble and the various forms of rheumatism, these waters undoubtedly possess great virtue.

To sum up, while it appears to me (and the best authorities corroborate this statement), that Pagosa Springs possesses all the medicinal virtues claimed by other hot springs in this country, it has in addition the advantages which are so well known to accrue to health resorts situated in a high altitude.

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