The Spring House is locally significant as one of the few surviving buildings dating to the initial settlement of Alma, Colorado, and the oldest of the two surviving buildings in Alma that historically functioned as hotels during the 1800s. Alma’s initial settlement period is defined as extending from ca. 1871, following the establishment of a 250-acre mining claim along Buckskin Creek on which the town developed, to 1882, the year that the Denver, South Park & Pacific Railroad reached the Alma area and the town firmly entered a new period of accelerated development and population growth after a period of decline during the late 1870s. The Spring House is further locally significant for its architecture as an excellent representation of the design norms and construction techniques prevalent in the high alpine mining community of Alma during the second half of the nineteenth century.