Colfax, Iowa: The Saratoga of the West

Colfax, Iowa was founded in eighteen sixty-six and named for Schuyler Colfax, who would soon become vice president under Ulysses Grant. It started as a modest railroad and stagecoach stop. Then in eighteen seventy-five, while drilling for coal, workers struck something nobody expected: a deep well loaded with mineral-rich water.

Word spread fast. Doctors and hoteliers arrived. Fourteen mineral springs were developed.

Nine hotels opened. Four bottling companies shipped the healing water to customers who could not make the trip in person. At its peak, Colfax was a thriving spa town, drawing visitors from across the country who believed a soak in the sulphurous baths could cure what ailed them.

The industry collapsed in the early twentieth century as modern medicine replaced the cure by waters. But Colfax still remembers its remarkable second act.