Iron Spring (Manitou Springs, Colorado)

Iron Springs / Iron Springs Geyser

~ 515 Ruxton Avenue, Manitou Springs, Colorado ~

Article by Thomas Baurley, Leaf McGowan, Techno Tink Research

Way up towards the Pikes Peak Cog Railroad and Dinner Theater is the historic “Iron Springs” or “Iron Springs Geyser.” Originally a natural spring drilled deeper, making it an active geyser, it has played a vital role in Manitou’s history. It was a hot spot for medicinal therapy for those who suffered from iron deficiency, especially during the 1880s. It was a location that was a daily long uphill exercise hike of health for numerous patients. 1900 Joseph G. Heistand purchased the Ute Iron Spring, developed the pavilion, and built the nearby Iron Springs Hotel. When it was drilled in 1910 by Joseph Hiestand for his patients, it became a geyser. He saw the benefit of drinking the foul-tasting high iron waters as a prescription to those suffering from iron deficiency. He fitted the geyser and spring with a hand-blown glass font showcasing its effervescent waters housed under a hip-roof style Pavillion.

The waters gained the nickname “chalybeate water” and contain high levels of iron, sulfate, fluoride, silica, sodium, and potassium. Silica from the springs is also known to promote beauty and strengthen nails, hair, and skin. Once, a geyser erupted every half hour, propelling 8 feet above the top of the drill pipe. Many describe the water’s taste as very foul iron-rich, as if drinking blood. This spring has also been called the “Only Chalybeate Springs in the West” and the “Strongest of Tonics.” The pavilion enclosing the geyser is said to be the oldest structure sheltering a mineral spring in Colorado. At one time, Joseph G. Heistand had curios and rock shops at this site. Artisan Steve Wood is responsible for the current font, alluding to the Ute Pass fault, resulting springs and properties of iron, magnetism, rusting, metabolism, and the richness of colors derived from ferrous materials in his artwork. He has it symbolizing the energy and force beneath one’s feet at this geologic intersection of the Ute Pass and Englemann Canyon faults. The area is named after the spring and is called the “Iron Springs” neighborhood of Manitou along Ruxton, in lower Englemann Canyon, along Ruxton Creek. Here, one can find the Paul Intemann Memorial Nature Trail, the Barr Trail, the Pikes Peak Cog Railroad, the Theater, and formerly a hotel resort.

A pavilion was built over the spring in the 1870s. In the 1880s, the Iron Springs Company purchased the spring, built an Adirondack-style wood pavilion, and bottled the water until it was sold to Joseph G. Hiestand in 1887. 1880 a candy and cigar store was built next to the Spring. Hiestand then tore down the pavilion and rebuilt it as a two-story structure, the top floor of which was a photographic gallery. He also collected and stored over 40 tons of items here, including rocks and gems, a massive petrified wood collection, and other mineral specimens he sold in his store, established in 1890.

When Heistand died in 1916, the spring was capped, and the Iron Springs Chateau Melodrama Theater was built over it. The public spring was moved downhill a bit and reopened later. The Iron Spring was capped in 1964 upon constructing the Iron Springs Chateau Melodrama Dinner Theater. Upstream is another spring called the Lower Englemann Canyon spring or Ouray Spring, which was at the mouth of the canyon and site of the Iron Springs Hotel. There was also the Ute-Iron and Little Chief Springs.

Mineral spring comparison chart

The little touristy village of Manitou Springs is most famous for its mineral springs that well up through eight (previously 10, upwards of 50) fonts peppered throughout the town. These springs are free to visit, and each holds its variation of minerals, magic, folklore, and healing properties that visitors have sought throughout the ages. Each has its unique flavor, natural carbonation, and effervescence. This valley was originally heavily frequented by various Native American tribes who visited Fountain Creek and its natural springs for their healing magic, offering homage and great respect to the spiritual powers that dwell here. They believed these magical springs were the gift of the Great Spirit Manitou, after which the town and valley were named. They brought their sick here for healing. The aboriginal inhabitants and visitors of the area called the “Great Spirit” as “Manitou” and felt these mineral springs was its breath, as the source of the bubbles in the spring water.

This made the waters and grounds extremely sacred. The Ute, Arapaho, Cheyenne, and many other tribes came here to partake of the great spirit’s breath. They would heal their sick here, collect the waters, stay for winters, and share in the waters as an area of peace where no conflict was allowed. There were believed to have been ten natural springs in the valley. The Euro-Americans caused conflicts and skirmishes with the Natives, pushing them out so they could utilize the valley for business, resort, tourism, and commerce. It is said after the Natives left, they cursed the area for the Whites and that no company will ever succeed there since it has been an ever-changing valley with businesses coming and going, failing and closing, with new ones coming in and replacing those that left.

Stephen Harriman Long was one of the first white explorers to record the waters in 1820. The expedition’s botanist and geologist, Edwin James, detailed the healing nature of the seas. The explorer George Frederick Ruxton wrote in his travel about these “boiling waters” as well and that “… the basin of the spring was filled with beads and wampum, pieces of red cloth and knives, while the surrounding trees were hung with strips of deerskin, cloth, and moccasins”. This is a common practice to leave such similar objects, items, and cultural artifacts around the world at magical and healing springs, wells, and bodies of water.

Nearly 50 years later, Dr. William Abraham Bell and General William Jackson Palmer made plans to develop a health resort here during the Civil War with “a vision of dreamy summer villas nestled in the mountains with grand hotels and landscaped parks clustered around the springs” that they called “Fountain Colony” and “La Font.” It became Colorado’s first resort town. By 1871, white settlers began developing the area for tourism, health care, and profit. A resort was soon developed here, taking advantage of the waters and incorporating them into medicinal and healing water therapies. This brought great prosperity to the region. By 1873, a developer named Henry McAllister, who worked for Palmer, spread the news about the medicinal benefits of the Springs and pushed for it to become a spa resort, including “incomparable climate and scenery” as its backdrop.

Then came various medicinal practitioners, such as Doctor Edwin Solly, who pushed the area as a resort for healing and therapy. They preached that the combined waters to drink, soak in, and breathe the pure air mixed with the sunny climate would be the most effective prescription to treat tuberculosis. The commercial businesses began to claim the various springs, enclosing some of them as the village grew.

The first was the Cheyenne Spring House, established as a red sandstone brick, conical-roof structure. Immediately after, over 50 wells and springs were drilled, many of which were enclosed. Once popularity disappeared and “dried up,” many of these springs were capped, paved over, and closed. However, as the fad died and medical centers and hospitals around the United States improved, Manitou became forgotten and suffered abandonment.

The Mineral Springs Foundation was formed in 1987 as an all-volunteer 501(c)3 non-profit to protect, improve, maintain, and manage the springs, targeting the restoration of some of the springs and promoting their popularity once again. They host walking tours called “Springabouts” every Saturday from Memorial Day to Labor Day, beginning downtown, and can be arranged by visiting the Tourist center or calling 719-685-5089. Upon request, the visitor center will provide maps, brochures, detailed content charts, and sampling cups. They can also be found on their website at http://www.manitoumineralsprings.org.

The series of springs has been developed as a National Register of Historic Places district and is located in one of the country’s largest districts of its kind. It was initially called the “Saratoga of the West” and established as a resort community within a spectacular setting at the edge of the Rocky Mountains along the base of Pikes Peak. Numerous bottling companies moved into the area, making a profit on the waters, the most famous of which was “Manitou Springs water,” which was sold globally.

Geology: The waters come from two sources in the Rampart Range and Ute Pass, these “deep-seated waters” travel through limestone caverns and drainage systems created by karst aquifers. The water dissolves the limestone and absorbs carbonic acid, carbon dioxide, and other minerals, making it “effervescent” or slightly naturally carbonated. Volcanic and inner core processes heat it. Through time, the waters return to the surface naturally using an artesian process rising to the surface, collecting soda, minerals, and sodium bicarbonate upwards. The other water sources are Fountain Creek and Williams Canyon, snowmelt, rainwater, and surface waters. The warm water then flows into a limestone cavern, where it becomes carbonated and springs forth to the surface in natural and human-drilled locations. Most of these waters take thousands of years to complete their voyage from the mountain snow-capped peaks down to inner earth and back up to the surface – freeing its content and solutions from being affected by industry, development, and atmospheric contamination.

The Springs of Manitou:
https://naiads.org/the-magic-and-minerals-of-manitou-springs/ 

• Cheyenne Spring –  https://naiads.org/cheyenne-spring-manitou-springs-colorado/
  This natural sweet soda spring comes from limestone aquifers and is believed to be over 20,000 years old.
• Iron Spring – https://naiads.org/iron-spring-manitou-springs-colorado/
  The Iron Spring is named after its harsh, foul, iron-tasting flavor and content. It was a man-made spring drilled in the 1800s and prescribed to patients for iron deficiency.
• Lithia / Twin Spring –
  This is a combined location of two man-made drilled springs—Twin Springs and Lithia Springs. It is popular for its Lithium content and sweet taste, calcium, lithium, and potassium content. It’s popular to mix it in lemonade.
• Navajo Spring – http://www.technogypsie.net/naiads/?p=3127
  This is a natural soda spring over which commercial development was built. It is now within and beneath the popcorn and candy store. This was the most popular spring, frequented by Native Americans and early Euro-American settlers, and was the founding spring for the village. It originally fed a large bathhouse and bottling plant, bringing fame to the town.
• Old Ute Chief Spring – http://www.technogypsie.net/naiads/?p=3169
• Seven Minute Spring – http://www.technogypsie.net/naiads/?p=3147
  A man-made spring was drilled in 1909 to enhance the neighboring hotel’s tourist attraction. Its unique carbonization caused it to erupt like a geyser every 7 minutes. It became dormant until the 1990’s when it was re-drilled and the surrounding park was established.
• Shoshone Spring – http://www.technogypsie.net/naiads/?p=3151
  This natural spring had sulfur content and was prescribed by various physicians for curative powers before modern medicine became popular and effective.
• Soda Spring – http://www.technogypsie.net/naiads/?p=3217
• Stratton Spring – http://www.technogypsie.net/reviews/?p=4931 or http://www.technogypsie.net/naiads/?p=3139
  This is a man-made drilled spring by the Stratton Foundation as a service to Manitou Springs village where tourists could come and partake of its waters, dedicated to early Native American Trails.
• Wheeler Spring – http://www.technogypsie.net/naiads/?p=3155
  This is another man-made drilled spring donated to the city by settler Jerome Wheeler of the New York Macy’s, who resided and banked in the town during the mining and railroad period. His former home is located where the current post office is today.

References:

• Gazette 2015 “List Manitou Springs”. Website referenced 12/21/16 at http://gazette.com/list-the-springs-of-manitou-springs/article/1565225.
• Harrison, Deborah 2003 “Manitou Springs”. Arcadia Publishing. ISBN 978-0-7385-2856-4.
• Manitou Springs Chamber of Commerce 2012 “The History of Manitou Springs”.
• Mineral Springs Foundation 2013 “Mineral Springs”. Website referenced 12/21/16 at http://www.manitoumineralsprings.org
• Mineral Springs Foundation 2013 “Iron Springs Geyser”. Website referenced 12/22/16 at http://manitoumineralsprings.org/iron-spring-geyser.html.
• Manitou Mineral Springs 2015 “7 Minute Spring”. Website referenced 12/21/16 at http://manitoumineralsprings.org/7-minute-spring.html
• National Register 2013 “American Dreams – National Register of Historic Places in El Paso County, Colorado.
• Visit Colorado Springs 2016 “Manitou Mineral Springs”. Website referenced 12/21/16 at http://www.visitcos.com/manitou-mineral-springs.
• Wikipedia 2016 “Iron Springs”. Website referenced 12/22/16 at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Springs,_Colorado
• Wikipedia 2016 “Manitou Springs Mineral Springs”. Website referenced 12/21/16 at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manitou_Mineral_Springs