Aspen

Aspen is a home rule municipality and the county seat of Pitkin County, Colorado, situated at an elevation of approximately 7,908 feet (2,410 m) along the Roaring Fork River on the state's Western Slope. The city lies in a remote area of the Rocky Mountains' Sawatch Range and Elk Mountains, along the Roaring Fork River, at an elevation just below 8,000 feet on the Western Slope, 11 miles west of the Continental Divide. The city population was 7,004 at the 2020 United States census. From its origins as a silver mining camp in the late nineteenth century, through decades of near-abandonment, to its reinvention as one of North America's premier ski and cultural destinations, Aspen has undergone some of the most dramatic transformations of any municipality in the American West. Nestled in the heart of the White River National Forest and surrounded by the peaks of the Elk Mountains, Aspen is well known as a ski destination, but the town's history and offerings go much deeper.

Early History and Indigenous Peoples

Archaeologists have discovered that ancient people made their homes in the mountains near Aspen as far back as 8,000 years ago, and Ute Indian tradition holds that these "Shining Mountains" have always been their homeland. The Roaring Fork Valley is the ancestral home of the Ute people, who used it as summer hunting grounds. During the 1870s, a mining boom drew thousands of white settlers to Colorado's Western Slope, resulting in clashes between whites and Utes.

In the fall of 1878, the Hayden Geological Survey released reports indicating promising geological formations for the presence of silver in the Roaring Fork Valley, which set off a wave of prospecting activity. The city's roots are traced to the winter of 1879, when a group of miners ignored pleas by Frederick Pitkin, Governor of Colorado, to return across the Continental Divide to avoid a Ute uprising. The Utes were fighting to maintain possession of their land and communities. Originally named Ute City, the small community was renamed Aspen. It was quickly renamed — rebranded because of the trees for better marketing possibilities and for finding investors.

The remaining Ute people, except for Southern Utes, were forcibly removed from Colorado and relocated to the Uintah and Ouray Reservation in Utah as stipulated in the 1880 Ute Removal Act; approximately 1,465 Ute people were removed from their ancestral lands in what is now considered Colorado.

The Silver Boom

Aspen began like many Colorado towns — as a small mining camp, founded by Henry B. Gillespie in 1879. Rich silver mines in the nearby Elk and Sawatch Mountains made the town one of the most prosperous mining centers on Colorado's Western Slope. The town of Aspen was platted in 1880 in a remote mountain valley in the west central Rocky Mountains, and quickly evolved from a mining camp of tents to a log cabin town. Pitkin County was created on February 23, 1881, with Aspen as its first and only seat. The Town of Aspen was incorporated on April 1, 1881.

Aspen had the winning combination of rich silver ores, two competing railroads, and ample investment from wealthy Victorian capitalists such as Jerome B. Wheeler, President of Macy's Department Store, and Cincinnati lawyer and businessman David Hyman. The arrival of the railroads was pivotal to the boom. Two railroad companies, the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad and the Colorado Midland, began a race to get rail service to Aspen first to capitalize on the rich mines. The D&RG won the race in November of 1887 by constructing 104 miles of track, beating the Colorado Midland by three months. A second railroad, the Colorado Midland, made it to Aspen by 1888. After the rail lines appeared, mining companies could economically export mineral ore to the smelters located in Leadville, and Aspen witnessed spectacular growth.

In its peak production years of 1891 and 1892, Aspen surpassed Leadville as the United States' most productive silver-mining district. Production expanded due to the passage of the Sherman Silver Purchase Act of 1890, which doubled the government's purchase of silver. By the 1890s, Aspen grew to around 12,000–16,000 people, the third-largest city in Colorado behind Leadville and Denver. At its peak, Aspen produced one-sixth of the nation's silver.

The silver boom also produced a remarkable urban infrastructure for such a remote mountain location. By 1893, two railroads served a community of approximately 13,000 residents, which boasted 14 newspapers, three schools, six firehouses, eight churches, 35 fraternal organizations, and a three-story brick opera house. The town became internationally recognizable for technology advancements in the industrial revolution, like hydroelectricity, even drawing engineers and businessmen from Kyoto, Japan, to Aspen in 1888 to see how the town used and developed the technology. The Hotel Jerome, one of the city's most enduring landmarks, was founded in 1889 alongside the landmark Wheeler Opera House.

Collapse and the Quiet Years

The boom ended when the Panic of 1893 led to a collapse of the silver market. For the next half-century, known as "the quiet years," the population steadily declined, reaching a nadir of fewer than 1,000 by 1930. Economic collapse came with the Panic of 1893, when President Cleveland called a special session of Congress and repealed the Sherman Silver Purchase Act. Within weeks, many of the Aspen mines were closed and thousands of miners were put out of work.

Aspen's mining boom came to an end with the repeal of the Sherman Silver Purchase Act in 1893, leaving town with an uncertain economic future. Known as the "Quiet Years," the period lasted from 1893 to 1936. Residents experienced many hardships and struggled to make a living. The area's economy shifted from mining to ranching. With minimal commercial silver markets, Aspen survived as a rural county seat and ranching center as mining declined. Just 700 people called Aspen home in 1935, when international outdoorsmen came to the Roaring Fork Valley in search of the ideal location for a ski resort.

The Ski Era and the Paepcke Renaissance

The transformation of Aspen into a ski destination began in the 1930s and accelerated dramatically after World War II. During the war's early years, a group of soldiers called the 10th Mountain Division were stationed at Camp Hale near Leadville. These men frequently used the Aspen area for training exercises, and the stunning landscape they found there clearly left an impression. After the war, in 1945, many of the 10th Mountain Division veterans returned to Aspen where they began to develop the area as a skiing destination.

Walter Paepcke and his wife Elizabeth first visited Aspen in 1945. They believed Aspen's natural gifts would be an ideal backdrop for outdoor sports such as skiing and hiking, intellectual discussion, and cultural events. They wanted Aspen to be a place where mind, body, and spirit could be one. They called this "the Aspen Idea," and that philosophy remains at the core of what Aspen strives to be today. In 1946, the Paepckes and the 10th Mountain Division veterans formed the Aspen Skiing Corporation.

The first ski-lift-assisted area was opened in the winter of 1946–47. A view of Aspen from the first chairlift installed on Aspen Mountain in 1947 shows what was at the time the longest chairlift in the world, aiding Aspen's legendary status as a premier skiing location. Three more mountains — Buttermilk (1958), Aspen Highlands (1958), and Snowmass (1968) — added to Aspen's reputation as a premier international resort.

The Paepckes are considered the modern-day founders of Aspen. In pursuit of "the Aspen Idea," the couple invited intellectuals, philosophers, and artists to attend the 1949 Goethe Bicentennial Convocation and Music Festival. In 1949, Paepcke and his wife Elizabeth were integral to founding the Aspen Institute, which in turn established the Aspen Music Festival and School; both are summer attractions.

Arts, Culture, and Modern Identity

Today Aspen's identity rests on two equally prominent pillars: world-class outdoor recreation and an arts and cultural scene that draws visitors year-round. Since 1949, the Aspen Music Festival and School has been one of the top classical music festivals in the United States. The eight-week summer season features over 400 classical music events. Aspen has also become a vacation center for the American film industry, and a film festival called Aspen Film was established there in 1979. The Aspen Art Museum, designed by Japanese architect Shigeru Ban, is a work of art in its own right. It is worth visiting to see its rotating exhibits of ever-changing international contemporary artists. Several theaters and music and film venues also call the city home, including the 133-year-old Wheeler Opera House, with its calendar of comedy shows, dance performances, festivals, concerts, and other events.

Four ski mountains make up the terrain for the world-renowned Aspen Snowmass resort. Aspen Mountain, locally referred to as Ajax, rises up directly from downtown. Buttermilk Mountain is home of the Aspen X Games and is a kids' and beginners' paradise. Aspen Highlands boasts the legendary Highland Bowl, and Snowmass offers the largest acreage and diversity.

The Maroon Bells Scenic Area is probably the most photographed spot in Colorado. Recreation like camping, fishing, and hiking are popular at the Maroon Bells Scenic Area. Nearby are some of the high points of the Rocky Mountains, including Capitol, Creek, Snowmass, and Maroon Peaks, all exceeding 14,000 feet; the average snowfall on these peaks exceeds 300 inches per year.

Contemporary Aspen: Prosperity and Challenges

The city's character has transformed dramatically in recent decades by skyrocketing property values and the proliferation of second homes, increasingly shutting low- and middle-income workers out of the city and creating a large pool of commuters from nearby bedroom communities such as Snowmass, Basalt, Carbondale, and Glenwood Springs. At the same time, in stark contrast to its historic character, the city has emerged into international fame as a glitzy playground of the wealthy and famous. Aspen has become a second and third home to many international jet-setters.

The downtown has been largely transformed into an upscale shopping district that includes high-end restaurants, salons, and boutiques. Stores such as Gucci, Prada, and Fendi dot South Mill Street and act as a "Rodeo Drive" of Aspen.

Aspen's government reflects its long history of civic engagement. Aspen is a home rule municipality under Colorado law, with a council-manager government. An elected council of four members and the mayor supervise the city's operations, managed on a day-to-day basis by the city manager, an appointed official who serves at their pleasure. The City of Aspen has engaged in historic preservation since the early 1970s and was one of the first communities in the state to formally address this issue. Many Victorian-era structures from the silver boom remain standing and are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Despite its transformation into one of the world's most expensive resort towns, Aspen retains the cultural and intellectual ambitions the Paepckes imagined. For many Aspenites, that original mind-body-spirit vision lives on in the art and music festivals, in the dignitaries who meet here, and in the skiing. From hunting territory to mining city, through the "Quiet Years" as an agricultural center to the present, the history of Aspen is the story of a town of changing economies with a distinct mix of locals and outsiders, recreation and culture, landscape and sport.