Crested Butte, Colorado

Crested Butte began in the late 1870s as a supply camp for the silver and gold prospectors working the surrounding Elk and West Elk Mountains, and the town was incorporated on July 15, 1880. But it was coal, not precious metal, that gave the place staying power. The valley held both bituminous and anthracite coal, and once the silver played out in the early 1880s, mining companies and their coke ovens turned the area into the state's leading mountain coal operation. That boom carried a hard price: on January 24, 1884, the methane-filled Jokerville Mine just outside town exploded, killing about fifty-nine miners in one of Colorado's deadliest coal disasters. Mining went on regardless, and the coal camp identity held for decades.

The mine that defined the town's second act was Colorado Fuel and Iron's Big Mine, which ran from 1894 until it closed in 1952, ending Crested Butte's long run as one of Colorado's most enduring communities of coal miners. What kept the town from becoming a ghost was a new use for its steep, snowy peak. A ski area opened on Mt. Crested Butte in the early 1960s, and in January 1963 the resort built a top-to-bottom gondola — one of Colorado's earliest. Then, in September 1976, a group of locals rode heavy one-speed 'klunker' bikes over 12,700-foot Pearl Pass to Aspen, half in revenge against motorcyclists who'd bragged about the route. That ride became the annual Pearl Pass Tour and helped make Crested Butte one of the cradles of American mountain biking.