Cambridge Springs is a borough in Crawford County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 2,363 at the 2000 census. From the late nineteenth into the early twentieth century, Cambridge Springs was known for its mineral springs. It was a resort town featuring a variety of hotels including the Rider Hotel, which burned down in 1931. Only one of these hotels, the Riverside Inn, remains in active use today and has been listed in the National Register of Historic Places since 1978. In 1904, the Rider Hotel in Cambridge Springs was the site of a famous chess tournament won by Frank Marshall ahead of World Champion Emanuel Lasker and fourteen other players. A variation of the Queen's Gambit opening played several times there is today known as the Cambridge Springs Variation (1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. Bg5 Nbd7 5.e3 c6 6. Nf3 Qa5 in algebraic notation). From 1912 to 1987 it was home to Alliance College. In 1912 United States President William Howard Taft traveled to Cambridge Springs for the dedication. Alliance College was an independent, liberal arts college located in Cambridge Springs, Pennsylvania, offering a special program in Polish and Slavic studies. From 1948 until its closing in 1987, the college was an accredited four-year co-educational liberal arts institution. Student matriculation peaked at 629 in 1968 [1]. Founded by the Polish National Alliance in 1912 "to provide opportunities for Americans of Polish descent to learn about the mother country, its culture, history, and language," it did not just provide its students a college education and book learning about their heritage. Through such extracurricular activities as the Kujawiaki folk dance ensemble and various exchange programs with Jagiellonian University in Cracow, Poland, students and faculty were able to participate in the culture of their heritage first-hand.