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Aspen: The History of a Silver Mining Town, 1879 - 1893
All those who delight in modern Aspen as a ski resort and cultural center, as well as those who enjoy reading about all the old Wild West, will be charmed by this book. In its heyday as a mining town, Aspen rivaled the camps of the California Gold Rush, Virginia City in Nevada's Comstock Lode, and Leadville in Colorado, and from 1887 to 1893 it was the riches silver-mining center in America. Aspen's story begins in 1879 with seven prospectors camped in tents by the intersection of the Roaring Fork River and Castle Creek at the foot of Aspen and Smuggler Mountains. The first great spurt of growth came in 1883, when Jerome B. Wheeler, a partner in Macy's Department Store, bought several claims and built roads and a smelter. The arrival of the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad in 1887 transformed Aspen into a major metropolis by the standards of the day, with some 12,000 inhabitants and services that included six newspapers, two banks, an opera house, electric lights and telephones, a street car system, a waterworks, and schools and churches. The city became home to colorful personalities like B. Clark Wheeler, grandiose promoter and editor of the Aspen Times, and Davis H.Waite, his father-in-law and a local reformer who was elected governor of Colorado in 1892. Rohrbough brings to life the dynamic entrepreneurs such as David M. Hyman and Henry B. Gillespie who made the town and profited from it, the vicious court fights that resulted from mining disputes, and most effectively of all, the atmosphere of a booming mining community. In July 1893 the price of silver dropped sharply and within a week, all the mines in Aspen closed. By 1930, Aspen was virtually a ghost town, with a population of 705. But then a new generation of entrepreneurs discovered another natural resource in this former mining camp. It was snow.
273 pages, Paperback
First published November 6, 1986
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
November 24, 2013
Most people today know Aspen, Colorado only as a skiing mecca, but before the town blossomed into one of the country's premier resort cities, it enjoyed a brief history as one of America's most important mining centers. Aspen was founded as a silver mining camp in 1879, and during the fourteen years that followed, it grew from a small camp into a town and then into a city. Then, suddenly, in the great economic depression that began in 1893, the price of silver collapsed and Aspen collapsed along with it, reverting first back to a town and then to a camp and ultimately to a shadow of its former self, home to barely 700 hardy souls by 1930. In this excellent example of local history, Malcolm J. Rorbough traces the rise of Aspen from its discovery in 1879 through its glory years and to its effective demise.
Like virtually all other successful mining communities, men of vision and courage who were willing to take great risks were essential to the founding and survival of the town. So was outside capital raised in distant cities like New York. But the latter meant that Aspen, like many other mining towns, was always at the mercy of outside forces that lay largely beyond its control.
As long as investors with deep pockets were willing to fund the mining operations, to build the smelters and bring the railroads to Aspen, the town would grow and prosper, and at its peak, it had several newspapers, electric lights, a municipal water system and an opera house. Like many other mining towns, it also had a lot of lawyers and litigation over the various mining claims was a constant fact of life. But in the end, other outside forces, also involving economic decisions made far outside the borders of the town, brought Aspen to its knees. It would not recover again until other people later saw a very different vision in the snowy mountains that surrounded the remnants of the city.
In its glory days as a mining town, Aspen did not remotely resemble the romantic vision that many hold of a frontier mining town. Rather, it was an industrial city like scores of others scattered across the country. Class distinctions were clearly pronounced and the workforce consisted of hundreds of wage laborers, most of whom toiled deep underground where the work was difficult, unpleasant and very dangerous. Wages were low; layoffs were common, and economic security was only a dream for most.
Rohrbough is perhaps at his best in describing the lives of the average working men and women who populated the town. Aspenites were fanatic about baseball; boxing and horse racing were also popular diversions, and as one might imagine, there was a significant amount of drinking, gambling and prostitution. Reformers, principally from the town's upper crust, periodically tried to clamp down on amusements that they found unseemly, but without much success. The town fathers recognized that a certain amount of vice was virtually inevitable in a mining community like Aspen and so made some effort to regulate it, but otherwise adopted a policy of live and let live.
All in all, this is a very compelling story and it's told extremely well. Rohrbough is a distinguished historian who has written a number of other excellent books about the development of the American frontier, and this is the equal of his other efforts. Anyone with an interest in Aspen or in the history of the mining frontier will find it very rewarding.
Like virtually all other successful mining communities, men of vision and courage who were willing to take great risks were essential to the founding and survival of the town. So was outside capital raised in distant cities like New York. But the latter meant that Aspen, like many other mining towns, was always at the mercy of outside forces that lay largely beyond its control.
As long as investors with deep pockets were willing to fund the mining operations, to build the smelters and bring the railroads to Aspen, the town would grow and prosper, and at its peak, it had several newspapers, electric lights, a municipal water system and an opera house. Like many other mining towns, it also had a lot of lawyers and litigation over the various mining claims was a constant fact of life. But in the end, other outside forces, also involving economic decisions made far outside the borders of the town, brought Aspen to its knees. It would not recover again until other people later saw a very different vision in the snowy mountains that surrounded the remnants of the city.
In its glory days as a mining town, Aspen did not remotely resemble the romantic vision that many hold of a frontier mining town. Rather, it was an industrial city like scores of others scattered across the country. Class distinctions were clearly pronounced and the workforce consisted of hundreds of wage laborers, most of whom toiled deep underground where the work was difficult, unpleasant and very dangerous. Wages were low; layoffs were common, and economic security was only a dream for most.
Rohrbough is perhaps at his best in describing the lives of the average working men and women who populated the town. Aspenites were fanatic about baseball; boxing and horse racing were also popular diversions, and as one might imagine, there was a significant amount of drinking, gambling and prostitution. Reformers, principally from the town's upper crust, periodically tried to clamp down on amusements that they found unseemly, but without much success. The town fathers recognized that a certain amount of vice was virtually inevitable in a mining community like Aspen and so made some effort to regulate it, but otherwise adopted a policy of live and let live.
All in all, this is a very compelling story and it's told extremely well. Rohrbough is a distinguished historian who has written a number of other excellent books about the development of the American frontier, and this is the equal of his other efforts. Anyone with an interest in Aspen or in the history of the mining frontier will find it very rewarding.
January 25, 2021
This was a pretty standard history book. Were this not my hometown and were it not research I don't think I would’ve gotten through it. Some parts were interesting but for the most part it was a traditional desert of nonfiction. Reading it once was certainly enough.
November 21, 2019
Very good. Great information!!
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews