FAIRMONT HOT SPRINGS

FAIRMONT HOT SPRINGS
Is a small community, located in the Columbia Valley, 139 kilometers south of Golden along Highway #95 between the Columbia and Windermere Lakes. The community and its hot springs were first used by various First Nations groups, long before a settler by the name of George Geary became the first European to settle in the area in 1887. When Sam Brewer bought the place a few years later, Fairmont Hot Springs quickly became a rest spot for the stage coaches that transported people up and down the Columbia Valley. Tourist and other different varieties of traveler facilities were set up at the springs in 1909, 5 years before the First World War (WWI) started. Fairmont Hot Springs is not only known for its famous hot springs, but is known as a retirement and vacationer community because of its three golf courses used mainly for people from various nearby cities like Revelstoke, Cranbrook as well as major Alberta city of Calgary who want to take a nice relaxing vacation from the pressures of living in a city environment. The community is also home to a small airport facility that offers private and public jets including Boeing 737s. Fairmont Hot Springs has plans to develop condominiums, many residential subdivisions, and an Alpine Ski Village for a nearby ski hill in time before the end of 2009 as well as renovate and expand the nearby ski hill. Fairmont Hot Springs is unincorporated despite its notoriety as a tourism community and is named after a log house hotel located within a half mile from the hot springs’ source, that was built in the late 1920s.

FAIRMONT HOT SPRINGS’ POPULATION: 489