A row of finger-sized crystal obelisks glints before me, each totem promising something powerful, and something I can use—wealth, peace, intuition, love, clarity. My task seems simple: pick the one that calls to me. Except I want them all. This is the “crystal concierge,” a complimentary experience at The Mining Exchange Hotel in Colorado Springs, where modern metaphysical meets old-school mining history.
It’s especially apt that a Colorado Springs hotel would lean into the power of crystals—this place practically hums with natural energy. Set at the base of Pikes Peak, a towering fourteener you can summit by car or slow-climbing cog railway, another main attraction is the Garden of the Gods, an otherworldly national landmark where jagged sandstone spires rise like a red rock forest, some towering up to 300 feet high.
Rockhounds come to the Colorado mineral belt to try their luck hacking away for aquamarine, smoky quartz, topaz, and more. The Colorado Springs Mineralogical Society sponsors the Pikes Peak Gem, Mineral, and Jewelry Show in June, while in mid-July is the two day Crystal Festival in the local events center, complete with a kids corner where you can make your own pet rock.
But the real driving force behind the region’s growth was mining. Gold was discovered in 1859, the same year the first settlement in the Pikes Peak area—now Colorado Springs—was founded. For a short time it served as the territorial capital and a key supply camp for miners. Just two decades later, a silver boom hit in 1879, so intense that Colorado proudly dubbed itself the “Silver State,” a title now officially claimed by Nevada…