These were widely thought to ease the suffering of people with tuberculosis, "chronic rheumatism, gout, biliary, and renal calculi.

Guests included Theodore Roosevelt,[5] Rutherford B. Hayes,[5] Ulysses S. Grant,[5] William Tecumseh Sherman,[6] John C. Frémont,[6] and Jesse James (who stayed at a predecessor hotel on the same property).

[6] Later articles would cite an improbable array of foreign dignitaries as having been guests, including Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany and Emperor Hirohito of Japan.

[5] The building was used as a training center by Jim Flynn when he was preparing for his 1912 boxing match with Jack Johnson (the fight was held in nearby Las Vegas, New Mexico).

Today, the Montezuma Castle, or Davis International Center as it is now known, houses multiple college facilities including the school dining hall, guest and dorm rooms, offices, classrooms, rehearsal spaces, and a student center complete with a store, laundry rooms, pool tables, a dance space, and a kitchen.