Tourists flocked to its mineral springs to improve their health
By Arvid Huisman
Long before interstate highways crossed the Hawkeye State, even long before federal and state highways were numbered, some rural Iowa communities were known far beyond the Mississippi and Missouri rivers.
As motorists zip across Iowa on Interstate 80 today, few are aware of the significant history of a small Jasper County community located on I-80 less than a half hour east of Des Moines.
This is the story of Colfax — at one time equated with the famous Saratoga Springs health resort in New York. More than a century ago, thousands of Americans and Europeans flocked to Colfax each year to improve their health and ease their aches and pains.
An advertisement for the Colfax Hotel during its heyday.
It started with coal and water
A stagecoach station had been located 10 miles west of Newton and Robert N. Stewart of Grinnell applied for a post office at the location in late 1864. The post office opened on Jan. 18, 1865. Colfax was founded the following year and named for Schuyler Colfax, vice-president under President Ulysses S. Grant.
Like many new towns in Iowa 150 years ago, the location quickly attracted residents and businesses. In 1867, Dr. J.R. Ryan, a physician, opened the first drug store and then a hotel. The railroad reached Colfax the same year.
About three years earlier, two young men discovered coal on a ridge above the Skunk River east of Colfax. Upon the railroad’s arrival, the demand for coal increased and additional coal supplies were discovered in the vicinity of Colfax. Coal mining became an important industry in the Colfax community.
Colfax was nearly 10 years old in the fall of 1875 when several local men were boring for a coal mine east of town. In the process a flow of water bubbled up from the ground.
Upon tasting the water they detected an unusual quality about it and decided to have the water analyzed. The analysis was conducted by James R. Blaney, a Chicago chemist, who detected a high mineral content and declared it to have medicinal value.
During the 19th and early 20th centuries, mineral waters were commonly employed to enhance general health and to treat chronic illnesses. “Taking the waters” involved drinking or bathing in the mineral water.
Word of the discovery of mineral water springs in Colfax spread quickly and soon the bottling of mineral water became an important business in Colfax along with the coal industry.
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