Steamboat Springs, CO news and local guide

The Steamboat Springs area was first home to the Yampatika band of the Ute, who hunted in the valley in summer, and trappers passed through in the early 19th century. Hearing a chugging sound, early trappers thought a steamboat was coming down the river, and when they found it came from a hot spring, they named it Steamboat Spring. James Harvey Crawford, the town's founder, first arrived in the spring of 1874, and his family moved there in 1876 and for five years were its only permanent white residents. From 1879 the U.S. Army forcibly removed the Ute to a reservation in Utah. The town was incorporated in 1900 and the railroad arrived in 1909, and ranching and mining were the original base of the economy.

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Skiing was at first simply a way to get around in the heavy Rocky Mountain winters, and its rise as a pastime spurred the town's growth. In 1913 the Norwegian Carl Howelsen moved to Steamboat Springs and introduced ski jumping, building the first jump on Howelsen Hill, now part of the Howelsen Ski Area, and he founded the annual Winter Carnival, still held each winter with ski racing and jumping, dog sledding and chariot races down Lincoln Avenue. Sources Wikipedia: Steamboat Springs, Colorado