Photos courtesy of Glenwood Canyon Historical Society, Schutte Collection.

Driving west along I-70 towards Glenwood Canyon, an ancient crater lurks at the base of the Flattops Wilderness. Signs of the past are found in the red dirt as are giant igneous boulders of the Dotsero Crater. Volcanic vents from the last uplift of plates have released hot mineral water into the Colorado River for thousands of years. These natural wonders led to a discovery of spectacular rock formations lining the canyon walls of what was once hidden. Now, as a result of modern innovation and determination, Glenwood Canyon acts as a gateway to and from the Rockies for thousands of vehicles a day. This human traffic way continues to evolve as nature constantly demonstrates who really holds power.

Over billions of years, the rising and falling of ancient seabeds created the dynamic walls of what we see today as Glenwood Canyon. These limestone rock layers are made up of skeletons of single celled creatures forming the book cliffs noted along the eastern section of the canyon.

First, the Ancestral Rockies pushed their way upwards making the backbone of a new continent. Jim Nelson writes in his book Glenwood Springs: A Quick History that huge swamps filled with primitive plants, bizarre amphibians and giant dragonflies came next. “The coal seams that underlay many of the mountains to the south and west of Glenwood Canyon are the result of those ancient swamps,” says Nelson.

Next, the present-day Rocky Mountains thrust into the air and collected deep deposits of snow and ice that warmed with weather and seasonal changes into water cascading downwards, removing loose material to form a canyon. Exposing layers of rock — everything from igneous, sedimentary and metamorphic to Precambrian — formed a 2,000-foot gorge. “It took the Colorado River most of the last 60 million years to cut through the billion or so years of history which makes Glenwood Canyon,” writes Nelson.

There is no evidence of Paleo-Indians entering this area until the Ute tribe — who controlled much of Colorado and Utah for hundreds of years. The Ute tribe came to the healing springs, which they called “Yampah” meaning “big medicine,” for centuries and utilized the Flattops Wilderness Area for hunting grounds. Travel through the canyon was treacherous and, habitation was kept to the fertile valley to the west.

Bill Knight, the executive director of the Glenwood Springs Historical Society and Frontier Museum, describes early settlement as an exclusive place sought out by the resilient. He says, “Though Glenwood Springs was an ideal location for settlement near hot springs and at the confluence of the Colorado and Roaring Fork Rivers, it was not easy to get here. The Colorado River flowed through steep canyons to the east and west blocking access. To the south and southeast, rugged Rocky Mountains had to be crossed by foot, mule or horse. So, when miners from Leadville began exploring the area, they came over Independence Pass and settled along the Roaring Fork River in the Aspen area first.”

Gold and silver brought explorers further west during the later 1800s. Prior mountain men, solitary trappers and adventurers existed with little impact, similar to their native neighbors, and might’ve visited the Yampah Springs. Richard Sopris was the first recorded non-Native to use the healing waters after falling ill in the present-day Roaring Fork Valley. With more white settlers encroaching on the tribal land, the White River band of Utes signed a treaty in 1849 “agreeing to remain at peace and to recognize the jurisdiction of the United States,” Nelson reports. “In return, they were to retain possession of Western Colorado ‘forever.’”

Thirty years later, an altercation with government Indian agent Nathan Meeker, who insisted on transforming the Utes into farmers, led to a deadly massacre and then the unfortunate removal of the Ute tribes to a reservation in Utah. An Indian agent is an official representative of the U.S. federal government to American Indian tribes on reservations. “The Utes had resisted the intrusion of other peoples since long before recorded history. However, they could not forever resist the relentless advance of progress, in the form of the white man,” Nelson continues.

With the native tribe gone, the only resident of the Roaring Fork Valley, James M. Landis who claimed squatter’s right to 160 acres a year prior, occupied the present-day Glenwood Springs, until his mother became the first white woman to arrive in 1881. The course of history changed when Isaac Cooper, a semi-disabled Civil War veteran, came to the area around the same time. Originally seeking the healing waters, he purchased Landris’ homestead for $1,500 with the goal of establishing a healing resort. In 1885, with the arrival of Cooper’s wife Sarah, the name of the small town changed to Glenwood Springs.

As silver began to pour from Aspen, lucrative money began to make its way down the valley in the form of the Devereux brothers, who, with the help of a group of British investors, purchased the Yampah Springs and 10 acres of adjacent land from Cooper for $125,000. Their goal was to build the world’s largest hot springs pool, which was completed in 1890.

“It was the railroad that provided access necessary for sustained settlement in Glenwood Springs,” explains Knight. Two railroad companies competed to be the first to reach Glenwood Springs both awaiting coal, silver and future resort passengers. “The Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad overcame the Colorado River’s Glenwood Canyon to the east and the Colorado Midland Railroad came to town after first tunneling through the Continental Divide into Aspen,” Knight adds. In 1887, it had taken two years of work in the canyon and over $2 million in investment to blast through the ancient canyon walls leading to the new “Resort City of the West.”

It wasn’t long after the railroad’s completion that a road was planned along the north side of the river. Taylor State Highway, named after the State Senator who proposed the wagon road from Denver to Grand Junction, was completed in 1902 and cost $60,000, “half of which was spent on the canyon east of Glenwood Springs,” notes Nelson.

Development in Glenwood Canyon wasn’t done, and as white settlers continued to prove that engineering and might can win over nature, they set upon capturing the mightiest of the forces rushing through canyon: the river. Then known as the Grand River, the mighty Colorado linked fresh snowmelt all the way to the Gulf of Mexico. Hydroelectric dams proved a dependable source of power in a time when more electricity was being brought to cities and coal extraction demonstrated significant difficulties to both the land and the miners. The Shoshone Hydroelectric Complex took four years to complete — finally finished in 1910 — and pumped 1,250 cubic feet of water per second through its innovative tunnel design.

During this time a construction camp was established in the canyon for over 1,000 men and their families who served the road and dam. Named Shoshone, the establishment housed a post office, company store, commissary, hospital, apartments, warehouses, offices, a train depot and school for the workmen’s children.

By the late 1930s, funding for an improved Highway 40 linking Kansas to Utah meant big improvements for the “Canyon of the Grand.” The road was widened to 29 feet across, including 25 feet of pavement and two feet of gravel shoulder on either side. In addition, many turnouts and picnic and parking areas provided a more scenic byway. “However,” Nelson writes, “its 57 curves, many of them blind, contributed to (rising) mountain accident rates.”

After World War II, paved highways and more automobiles crept across America. President Eisenhower helped establish interstates for improved transportation, and yet the last section of I-70 through Glenwood Canyon seemed like an impossible feat. Locals saw the scars left on the canyon from a turn of the century railroad and the narrow two-lane road and urged lawmakers to push the interstate either over the Flattops or through Cottonwood Pass. Both alternative options posed even more environmental problems — an extended road moving to 10,000 feet in elevation or another mountain pass with steep grades and winding turns. A citizen’s advisory committee was established to assist the highway department in providing feedback to their planning. Concepts modeled off Italian road-building techniques surfaced, and environmental preservation became an utmost concern for expanding to a four-lane interstate. Restoration practices, state of the art tunnel technology and access to scenic areas like Hanging Lake were all included in the construction, which took 12 years to complete.

The “Crowning Jewel of the Interstate System” was completed in 1992 and cost $500 million. Accessibility for recreation including fishing, boating, hiking and biking along the 8-foot-wide bike path made this project something for the whole family to discover. With the marvelous canyon backdrop, vehicle passengers experienced a fast paced, twisting tour of thousands of years of natural history displayed in the rock walls.

In 2020, a wildfire erupted in Grizzly Creek canyon which left lasting scars on the vegetation. The Grizzly Creek fire burned 32,631 acres of forest and closed I-70 for 13 days. Knight remarks on how we learned that Mother Nature still rules in the canyon. He states, “Without vegetation to hold the soil and rocks in place, all it took was a heavy summer rainstorm in 2021 to wipe out a section of I-70 and halt traffic for almost two weeks.”

Knight believes the town has adapted well to all the road closures and reconstruction. “Mountain people are tough and adjust to yearly disruptions in their daily lives, such as driving in winter weather, wildfires and mudslides,” believes Knight.

Reflecting on how only a couple hundred years of human interaction with this canyon has changed the landscape dramatically, Glenwood Springs still wouldn’t be the place it is today without the lifestyle to support the vision first planned by the founding members. Outdoor adventure like skiing, biking and boating all attribute to Glenwood’s growth — along with the accessibility through the canyon.

As we’ve seen in a mere 150 years, once people create opportunities for advancement of modern civilization, a wake of environmental destruction ripples in the existing landscape. Only through collective efforts like in the development of I-70 can we adopt better practices to co-exist. Although, Mother Nature still demonstrates her power, so is this enough? Are we both the cause and effect of these environmental issues which affect our progress as an advanced civilization?

Originally published in the Spring 2022 of Spoke+Blossom.

From Natural History To Mudslides: How Glenwood Canyon Became A Modern Traffic Way Over The Past 100 Years