Author Archives: Tim Cooney

While living in Aspen between 1946 and 1975, he was the carte blanche designer of modern town shaper Walter Paepcke during the transition from mining and ranching to skiing, but few realize how Bayer’s pivotal contributions to midcourse Aspen shaped what town is today.

In a time when second homes were few and short-term rental referred to skis, Aspen abided comfortably with cars. A legendary, mischief-making doctor brought a sports-car race to town in the early 1950s.

Once celebrated in 1906 Aspen as the transition from horse and buggy to metropolitan, the circumnavigation of the first car through town brought looky-loos into the streets. Who then would have imagined that 116 years later Main Street would be gridlocked with “tin Lizzies.”

Lawsuit leads to financial troubles, before fire fries flotation mill.

After meeting the man who’d earlier laid out the claim at the top of today’s Little Nell where the first silver ore outcroppings were discovered, Staats eyed straight across to Smuggler where the same lime and silver had surfaced. By his reckoning, rich claims should be found in Hunter Creek.

The Fry-Ark grew out of post-World War II optimism when government championed big projects and environmentalism was a seedling.