Acquarossa Thermal Springs

The town is of Etruscan origin and dates back to the mid-7th century BC. The current name derives from the nearby iron-rich water source.

Acquarossa ("red water") in the middle Blenio Valley takes its name from the local springs containing salt, iron, arsenic and lithium carbonate, which have a constant temperature of 25 to 26 degrees Celsius and flow out of the mountainside at 2500 liters per minute. The bathing and drinking water from the spring, as well as the red mud (fango) obtained from it, are said to have medicinal healing powers. The first mention of the place name Aquam rubeam comes from 1446. In the 18th century there was a small bath that was built in 1786 on the foundations of an earlier building, the Palazzo Malingamba.
A park, several restaurants, a post office with telephone and telegraph as well as a carriage service and, from 1911, a rail connection to the Biasca-Acquarossa railway (today the new bus station) near Comprovasco were available. Initially almost unknown in the north of the Alps, the spa was visited primarily from Ticino and Italy until the outbreak of the First World War.