Written by Anne Gilbert, as part of the Roaring Fork Research Scholarship for the Aspen Historical Society in 1991, the paper provides insights into the daily life of people miners and ranchers.

Introduction:

Aspen was born a mining camp. People flocked there from all over the world to make money off of Aspen’s silver, but Aspen has always been about much more than miners and entrepreneurs. These people needed services, and many wanted families. Mary Ballou spent 1852 in a mining camp, and her life consisted of cleaning dirt floors, cooking constantly, raising chickens, feeding large groups of miners three times a day, and chasing the hogs from her kitchen
around the clock. She said “I would not advise any lady to come out here and suffer the toil and fatigue that I have suffered for the sake of a little gold . . . . “1 Women like Mary Ballou added their perspectives and made themselves significant members of mining communities all over the American West, including Aspen. Miners valued women as wives as well as cooks and prostitutes, and men often left town or even the country to bring spouses back and start a
family. Although a minority at first, women and children played an important role in the quality of life in Aspen. This life of Aspenites outside the mines, not to mention the life of miners outside their work role, needs more exploration.