When Aspen’s Hotel Jerome opened in 1889, built by silver baron Jerome B. Wheeler at the height of the town’s silver mining boom, the Aspen Times hailed its elegance with epic alliteration.
“The handsomest hotel on the Western Slope opened its broad portals to the merriest crowd of merrymakers ever assembled in the silver metropolis,” the newspaper crowed on Nov. 29, 1889.
The town that would become known for skiing, culture, glitz and glamor decades later had struck it rich. Wheeler, a civil war veteran who visited Aspen in 1883, also built an opulent three-story opera house. On opening night an opera company performed “The King’s Fool,” and a group of female fencers put on a swordplay exhibition.
Rich silver veins had been discovered in 1879, igniting a 14-year mining boom. For a brief time, Aspen was one of the most productive silver mining locales in the U.S., producing one-sixth of the nation’s silver, according to a timeline compiled by the Aspen Historical Society. It grew to become Colorado’s third-largest city with 13,000 residents, two railroads, 14 newspapers, three schools, six firehouses and eight churches.
The silver boom was short-lived, though. Silver prices collapsed in 1893, contributing to a severe depression. Soon the silver mines mostly fell silent, although the largest silver nugget ever mined in the U.S. was unearthed at the Smuggler Mine in 1894. It weighed more than a ton and was nearly 96% pure.
Aspen’s population declined by half after the silver crash, and the economy of the Roaring Fork valley turned to farming and ranching.
In 1936, Andre Roch was hired to survey the area for a proposed ski resort. A noted Swiss skier and avalanche expert, Roch recommended Mount Hayden, 12 miles south of Aspen near Ashcroft. That never came to fruition due to World War II, but Roch staked out a trail on Aspen Mountain while he was there.
Members of the Roaring Fork Winter Sports Club, which Roch founded, cut the trail and named it after him. In 1937 they built an uphill cable tow for skiers, and in 1938 they added a “boat tow” consisting of two wooden sleds resembling flat-bottom wooden boats that were capable of hauling passengers uphill, sliding on a snowtrack. Aspen hosted the national ski championships in 1941[.cq comment=”CQ” ]
Elizabeth Paepcke, who would play a pivotal role in Aspen’s renaissance, first visited in 1939. A visionary, she saw huge potential in the valley’s surpassing beauty.
“A friend of mine had told me that Aspen was this beautiful little Victorian village that had gone to sleep, and that I would adore it,” said Paepcke, who died in 1994. “I certainly did.”
She returned to Aspen in 1945 with her husband, Chicago industrialist Walter Paepcke. They were largely responsible for the town’s rebirth, along with 10th Mountain Division veteran Friedl Pfeifer. While the Paepckes envisioned Aspen as a cultural and recreational retreat, Pfeifer was keen on its potential as a ski resort.
A native of Austria, Pfeiffer had visited Aspen while stationed with the legendary World War II ski troops at Camp Hale near Leadville. On the spot, he made up his mind to return when the war ended.
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“I knew it and I let it be known,” said Pfeifer, who died in 1995. “I went before the city council and told them I wanted to come back after the war and turn it into a ski resort. God put it there, and he had skiers in mind.”
Pfeiffer and Walter Paepcke met in 1945 and joined forces, founding the Aspen Skiing Corporation in 1946, and they took over ski operations on Aspen Mountain. In December 1946, they opened the first chairlift — then the world’s longest — a single-seater equipped with canvas blankets.
Aspen wasn’t the only former Colorado mining town that would become a major ski resort. Telluride saw a gold and silver boom from 1875 until the silver crash of 1893. There was enough gold to keep some mines open until 1978, though, according to a history of Telluride on the Mining History Association website. The Telluride Ski Resort opened Dec. 22, 1972, with five lifts and a day lodge.
Breckenridge’s mining history predates Aspen and Telluride. The Pikes Peak Gold Rush began luring miners to Denver, Central City and Breckenridge in 1859, and the town of Breckenridge was founded that year. Most of the early mining there consisted of placer mining — extracting minerals from sand and gravel in river beds — and mining declined during the Civil War.
After silver was discovered in the 1870s, the miners returned and hard rock mining boomed. In 1880, the population numbered 1,657, according to Breckenridge History, the town’s historical non-profit. There were two dance halls, 10 hotels and 18 saloons. A railroad over Boreas Pass connected Breckenridge to Denver in 1882. In 1887, a gold nugget weighing more than 13 pounds — the largest found in Colorado at that time — was discovered there.
In 1898, dredge boats arrived that were two-stories tall and capable of digging 70 feet deep into river beds. Some of the rock piles created by the dredge boats are still visible today. Dredging operations continued until 1942 when Breckenridge’s gold mining era ended.
The Breckenridge ski area opened on Dec. 16, 1961. Known initially as Peak 8, it had a double chairlift with a midway unloading station and a short T-bar for beginners.
The town’s ski heritage actually dates back to the 19th-century mining days, though. John Lewis Dyer, an itinerant Methodist preacher, arrived with the earliest prospectors in 1862. He supported his traveling ministry by hauling mail over Hoosier Pass to Alma and from there to Leadville over Mosquito Pass on 10-foot wooden skis known at the time as Norwegian snowshoes.
“Dyer commonly started at 2 in the morning when the snow was firm,” according a profile on the Breckenridge History website. “To the song of the howling wolves, he moved mail and ministry from Breckenridge over Hoosier Pass to Buckskin Joe near today’s Alma. After a brief rest, Dyer journeyed atop Mosquito Pass, towering over 13,000 feet in elevation, on to Oro City (now Leadville). He might make the return trip the following day.”
Many regard Dyer as Colorado’s first backcountry skier. He also built a church in Breckenridge where services are still held, although not at its original location. A stained glass rendering of Dyer was installed at the state capitol in 1900, along with 15 other “Colorado pioneers,” and he was included as one of the inaugural inductees into the Colorado Snowsports Hall of Fame in 1977.
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