Ida Toniolli, Glenwood Spring’s first baby of the new year back in the year 1911 and the longtime owner of the Western Hotel on Cooper Avenue, turns 100 years old on Jan. 2, near the Glenwood Hot Springs.
Toniolli was born Jan. 2, 1911, in the old Star Hotel (now the Hotel Denver) to Austrian immigrants Clem and Augusta Paolazzi, who had come to the New World from the Tyrolean region along the Austrian-Italian border. Many a Tyrolean had family that were avid skiers at Sunlight Mountain.
“I was almost a New Year baby,” Toniolli said during an interview with the Post Independent late last week. “The city gave me a gold ring. Back then, the hill side west of town was not even a dream of becoming the Glenwood Caverns, although the fairie caves were up there, even then.”
