Aspen’s Great Train Race

The race to fame and fortune in Aspen began not in the 1960s but shortly after the townsite of Aspen was discovered in 1879. First called Ute City, Aspen soon gained the reputation as a town on the rise and with it came prospectors hoping to find their fortunes in the mountains above town. But Aspen’s early success could not happen with key components–one of which being a railroad. What Aspen got was not one railroad but two, competing to see which would be the first to reach this burgeoning silver town on the Western Slope of the Continenal Divide. Join us for a brief history of the Great Train Race–Aspen-style.