Manitou Springs: The Breathing of the Great Spirit

Eight different springs rise within a few blocks of each other in the canyon town of Manitou Springs, each carrying water that has spent years filtering through limestone and granite before erupting, cold and heavily carbonated, from the ground. The water tastes like different things depending on which spring you find: some are iron-bitter, some mineral-flat, some close to drinking water, some so fizzy they foam in the cup. No two springs are the same, because each draws from a different subterranean path.

The Ute, the Cheyenne, and the Arapaho knew these springs for centuries before any European arrived. They interpreted the carbonation differently than a geologist would. The bubbles were the breath of the Great Spirit Manitou rising through the earth, and they left offerings of beads and fetishes in the pools as acknowledgment.

The springs were neutral ground, a place where tribes that might otherwise fight could arrive separately and drink without contest. General Palmer and his physician partner Dr. William Abraham Bell recognized the springs as an asset when they founded Manitou in eighteen seventy-two.

They built a resort town around the waters, and in the eighteen seventies and eighties Manitou became the spa destination of the Rockies. Visitors took the waters for digestion, for skin, for nerves. Ornate pavilions were built over the spring sources.

By the mid-twentieth century the springs had been largely neglected. A local foundation called the Mineral Springs Foundation revived them beginning in nineteen eighty-seven, capping and refurbishing the sources one by one. Eight springs are now publicly accessible along a walking route through town, and the water still comes up cold.