Long before the towns, Middle Park was Ute hunting ground

The wide mountain valley that holds Grand County’s towns is part of an area long called Middle Park. Long before any town existed here, this was home and hunting ground for Ute people, who traveled through the mountains with the seasons.

The valley’s game, water, and warm springs drew people here for generations. The hot springs at the place now called Hot Sulphur Springs were used and valued by Ute people well before they were marketed as a resort.

During the 1800s, treaties and later events pushed Ute people off much of this land and onto reservations elsewhere in Colorado and Utah. That history is real, and it is not simple. It deserves to be told carefully and from sources close to the people who lived it, not summarized from memory or romanticized.

If you are new here, it helps to know that the names on the map and the springs in the ground have a much older story than the founding dates of the towns. To learn that story respectfully, start with Grand County’s own history pages, the records held by the Colorado State Archives, and accounts that draw on tribal sources rather than tourist brochures.