Written by W. Clark Whithorn, as part of the Roaring Fork Research Scholarship for the Aspen Historical Society in 1993, the paper provides insights into the history of Aspen and the railroads that came in the 1880s.

Introduction:

Mining represents one of the great communal efforts in the conquest of the West. Miners depended on farmers to
supply them with food. Storekeepers provided miners with tools, candles, clothing, and other implements necessary to
the tasks of mining. Ultimately, though, miners depended upon the men running transportation services to take ore to
smelters and bring back mining supplies. The most important transportation service was the railroad. Other types of
transportation services–burro pack trains and wagons-initially served to get Aspen’s mining boom underway, but
the railroads were capable of moving ore in greater quantities as well as bringing more goods and services to
Aspen. The railroad put the community on solid economic footing, and when the silver market collapsed in 1893 the
railroad saved the town by continuing its service for the region’s farmers and miners who remained after the 1893
collapse.