Indian Hot Springs Covered Bridge

Tucked onto the grounds of Indian Hot Springs in Idaho Springs, this small covered footbridge crosses Soda Creek on a King post truss, making it one of the only Colorado covered spans built with an authentic historic truss design rather than modern stringer construction. Dating to around 1930, it's also among the oldest covered bridges anywhere in the state.

The bridge sits within a resort whose own history reaches back much further. The mineral hot springs here were used by the Ute and Arapaho peoples long before Colorado's mining era, and commercial bathing began in 1863 as the aptly named "Saratoga of the Rockies" after prospectors drilling for gold struck hot water instead. The resort that grew up around the springs — now featuring an indoor mineral pool beneath a domed conservatory, geothermal caves, and private soaking tubs — remains one of the closest hot springs getaways to Denver. The covered bridge is a quieter, easy-to-miss detail on the property, but its King post truss gives it a more genuinely old-fashioned bridge-building pedigree than almost anything else covered in Colorado.