The City of Glenwood Springs is a Home Rule Municipality that is the county seat and the most populous city of Garfield County, Colorado, United States. The U.S. Census Bureau stated that the city population was 9,677 in 2012 as compared to 9,614 according to the 2010 census. Further growth is expected to be slow due to severe geographic constraints. Glenwood Springs is home to one of the campuses and the administrative offices of the Colorado Mountain College system.

Glenwood Springs was named the "Most Fun Town in America" by Rand McNally and USA Today in their 2011 Best of the Road Rally contest.

History

Glenwood Springs was originally known as "Defiance". Defiance was established in 1883, a camp of tents, saloons, and brothels with an increasing amount of cabins and lodging establishments. It was populated with the expected crowd of gamblers, gunslingers, and prostitutes. Town Founder Isaac Cooper's wife Sarah was having a hard time adjusting to the frontier life and in an attempt to make her environment somewhat more comfortable, persuaded the founders to change the name to Glenwood Springs, Colorado, after her beloved hometown of Glenwood, Iowa.

Its location at the confluence of the Colorado River and the Roaring Fork River as well as gaining a stop on the railroad historically made it a center of commerce in the area. The city has seen famous visitors including President Teddy Roosevelt who spent an entire summer vacation living out of the historic Hotel Colorado. Doc Holliday, a wild west legend from the O.K. Corral gunfight, spent the final months of his life in Glenwood Springs and is buried in the town's original Pioneer Cemetery above Bennett Avenue. Infamous serial killerTed Bundy was imprisoned in the Glenwood Springs jail until he escaped on the night of December 30, 1977, an escape which went undetected for 17 hours.