Before the arrival of Hispanic and Anglo settlers, the springs were used by the Folsom culture, a 9,000-year-old Folsom point was found at the site of a shelter foundation nearby. Later, the Ancestral Puebloan people used the springs, having settled at the San Juan River approximately 1,000 years ago. Shards of pottery made by the Ancestral Puebloans were found at the springs in the 1950s when a well excavation blast caused the spring water to eject underground material.
