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Ashcroft

Located about eleven miles south of Aspen in Castle Creek Valley, Ashcroft was established in 1880 as a silver mining camp. It quickly grew to more than 2,000 residents and briefly rivaled Aspen, but it was already declining by the late 1880s because the…

Independence

Located just west of Independence Pass at an elevation of about 10,900 feet, the town of Independence was established in 1879 and boomed briefly in the early 1880s, reaching an estimated population of 1,500. In the mid-1880s, the town’s harsh climate and…

St. Elmo

Located at an elevation of 10,000 feet in Chalk Creek Canyon southwest of Buena Vista, the historic mining town of St. Elmo was founded in 1880 and flourished for less than a decade. Although it is actually inhabited by a small handful of full-timers and…