Aspen began as a silver mining camp

Long before Aspen was known for ski runs, it was a silver town. Miners came over from the Leadville district into the Roaring Fork Valley in the late 1870s and early 1880s, and a camp of tents and log cabins grew into a busy mining town. Mines on the slopes above town, including the Smuggler, pulled silver and lead out of the mountains.

That boom did not last unbroken. In 1893, a national shift away from silver triggered a crash that hit Colorado’s silver economy hard. Towns that had grown up around silver, Aspen among them, quieted as mines closed and people left. The “quiet years” that followed lasted decades, until skiing and a new kind of visitor gave the town a second life in the mid-1900s.

This history still shows up on the map. Street patterns, old mine sites, and historic buildings downtown all trace back to the mining era, not the ski era. Knowing that order — silver first, snow much later — helps make sense of why the town sits where it does and why it looks the way it does.

Mining history is also a reminder to be careful with old workings and tailings on the landscape; those are best left to the agencies that manage them.

For the documented history, see History Colorado’s pages on Aspen’s historic resources and the Smuggler Mine.