The Aspen area was originally discovered by the Ute Indians and called "Shining Mountains".
The first silver miners arrived in the Roaring Fork Valley in the summer
of 1879 and by that fall a small group of entrepreneurs and speculators had
staked claims and set up camp at the foot of Aspen Mountain. Prospectors settled
in Aspen hoping to strike it rich in silver. Before a permanent settlement
could be established, news of a nearby Indian uprising prompted Colorado's Governor
Frederick Pitkin to urge the settlers to flee back across the Continental
Divide for their safety. Most of them did, and only a handful of settlers remained
in the Roaring Fork Valley during the winter of 1879. Those that remained attempted
to organize the camp and passed a resolution to respect the claims of
those who had fled, as well as the claims of those settlers who stayed. This action
transformed the small group of settlers into a "sovereign" body in the eyes
of the State of Colorado and recognized that the rules of local mining districts
under the federal mining law of 1866 was to be followed. The citizens had begun
the process of organizing themselves into a political body.
First
christened Ute City, the town of 300 residents was renamed to Aspen in 1880.
By 1891 Aspen had surpassed Leadville as the nation's largest single silver producing
mining district. By 1893, Aspen was a booming silver town with 12,000
people, six newspapers, two railroads, four schools, three banks, electric lights,
a modern hospital, two theaters, an opera house, and a very small brothel district.
In 1893 however the Sherman Silver Act was repealed which demonetized
silver and marked Aspen's decline as a mining town. Ironically, one of the largest
nuggets of native silver ever found was mined in 1894 in Aspen from the Smuggler
mine.. |
