Independence’s population reaches 500 and it is served by four grocery stores, four boarding houses, and three saloons.

A telegraph connecting Aspen, Ashcroft, and Crested Butte is completed.

Wagon road over Taylor Pass is officially opened. Horace Tabor comes to and invests in the Montezuma and Tam O’Shanter mines. Volunteer fire department is established. Silver is discovered in the Molly Gibson Mine. The remaining Ute people (except for Southern Utes) are forcibly removed from Colorado and relocated to the Uintah and Ouray Reservation in Utah as stipulated in the 1880 Ute Removal Act (approximately 1,465 Ute people were removed from their ancestral lands in what is now considered Colorado to reservations west of their range). Independence Pass road is completed to Aspen. Aspen Mining and Smelting Company is organized. Prospectors form the mining camp Ashcroft. Stages are running from Leadville to Independence Gold Camp where 300 people now reside. Cowenhoven arrive after a difficult 3-week wagon trip from Leadville over Taylor Pass. Wheeler surveys town site and renames it Aspen, forming his own town company. Hallam, as agents and co-partners of David Hyman of Cincinnati arrive in Ute City. Prospectors discover the Independence Gold Lode on July 4 in what will become the mining camp of Independence.ī. He lays out a town and calls it Ute City. Gillespie arrives in Aspen to examine a claim and travels to Washington, DC to petition for a Post Office. Hayden Geological Survey reports are released in fall of 1878 indicating promising geologic formations in the Roaring Fork Valley for the presence of silver prompting the first prospectors to cross difficult mountain passes, explore the area for silver and lay claims on what will become one of the richest silver lodes in history. For the next 14 years Aspen’s fortunes rose as it eventually produced 1/6th of the nation’s and 1/16th of the world’s silver. In 1879 the first prospectors arrived in what would soon become Aspen and determined the area contained large deposits of silver ore. History Picks 2020 | Staff Members’ Favorite Maps.The Aspen Historic Park and Recreation District ».

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