GENERAL41483

• Permit No: M1995097
• IBM Index Class Name: General Documents
• Doc Name: BIBLIOGRAPHY WITH INTRODUCTION GLOSSARY OF TERMS AND LIST OF MINERALS
• Media Type: D
• Archive: No

INTRODUCTION
of brilliant red, yellow and orange iron staining that
characterized the ore deposits in the Leadville district, between
them they staked some of the richest and most famous of the Aspen
mining claims - the Spar, Durant, Pioneer, and One-Thousand-and-One
on Aspen mountain. They also restaked an abandoned mining claim on
Smuggler mountain and named it the Smuggler. Both parties, which
included names yet remembered by street names and otherwise
memorialized in Aspen, e.g., Hopkins, Clark, Bennett, left the
valley of the Roaring Fork to the Utes before the middle of July.
But the absence of the white man was brief. News of the silver
strikes spread rapidly. Before the summer was over two log cabins
had been built and the population of the future Ute City, and later
Aspen, had grown to 12. During the summer of the discoveries
silver was selling for approximately $1.15 per troy ounce.
Men continued to arrive through the fall and winter, rumors
of Indian uprisings and the winter snows of the high country
notwithstanding. Other claims were staked, merchants appeared to
provide the basics of survival to the prospectors, and the
settlement took on the appearance of a hundred other early mining
camps. Among later arrivals in 1879 was Henry Gillespie who
brought with him the first contingent of Leadville miners. It is
likely that the first actual mining took place in late 1879 or
early 1880, although the exact time of that event is unknown.
Gillespie also organized the camp, named it "Ute City," and left to
seek official status for the new community at the base of Aspen
mountain. On his way to Washington to apply for a post office for
Ute City, Gillespie stopped in Cincinnati and sold a half-interest
in his properties, which included options on the Spar and Galena
mining claims, to his former employer and friend, Abel D. Breed.
In February of 1880, while Gillespie was off trying to
officially establish Ute City, promoter B. Clark Wheeler skied into
the diminutive camp. Knowledgeable in the manner of laying out and
promoting a town, B. Clark, as he would be known in future years,
carried an order for survey from the Surveyor General of Colorado.
He proceeded to lay out the townsite officially, effectively
"jumping" Gillespie's claim. The final act in the process was to
identify the new survey. On the sketch he intended to submit to
the state in order to officially claim the site, B. CLark Wheeler
scrawled the name "ASPEN."
Quite independently of Henry Gillespie's association with
Abel Breed, another Cincinnatian, attorney David M. Hyman, had,
through unrelated legal proceedings, become associated wittiCharles
A. Hallam, also of that city. in 1879 Hallam announced his
intention to travel to Colorado to seek his fortune. Hallam
persuaded Hyman to put up some money to assist him in his endeavor.
Hyman agreed, limiting his investment to $5,000, or so he thought.
Hallam subsequently became associated with B. Clark Wheeler, and in
January of 1880 the two drew upon the entire $5,000 Hyman had
BIUCe A. COlllns - Xlll - SMUGGLER BIBLIOGRAPHY