Possibly his betrothal hit a snag, or the countess puffery may have been a set up for a pretextual return to Aspen in 1907, when he took back control of the Aspen Times, announced he was running for the state House of Representatives and trumpeted reopening the Little Annie and Famous Tunnel.
Category: History
Posted inHistory
Aspen mayor and defendant
Newspaper accounts reported claims against Wheeler, painting a pattern of manipulation and a life under pressure. But in the frontier era, when physical distance from problems created more insulation, Wheeler put off what he could by traveling and conducting state senate business, as he delayed and jockeyed assets.
Posted inHistory
B. Clark Wheeler, a nimble man in his time
The yarn is often spun of Wheeler’s Herculean mid-February 17-day roundtrip snowshoe odyssey from Leadville to Ute City over Independence Pass to inspect mining prospects and lay out a town.
Posted inEnvironment
The Western Slope’s nuclear fracking legacy
Observers remain concerned that modern horizontal drilling and fracking technologies have increased the risk that the entombed radioactive material may be disturbed, and skepticism persists that the flaring of contaminated natural gas after the Rulison test had harmful effects.
Posted inAspen Ideas Fest
Better ideas wrestle a brave new world
Ruth Katz outlined this year’s six underlying themes: “decoding the brain, audacious science, investing in health, food for thought, uncommon allies, and pop health,” adding that “good ideas involve much more than biomedical breakthroughs and possessing a good insurance card.”
Posted inHistory
APSPA: From corporate burr to community asset
The role Aspen’s Ski Patrol has played in holding Ski Co. accountable through ownership and management changes for fair wages and working conditions, which benefitted employees across the board.
Posted inHistory
You fall, we haul
As the slow-boiling frog of unaffordability in Aspen approached lukewarm in the 1970s, the ski patrol again challenged Brown to increase wages and compensate seniority skills. Standing out in the recollections of a local few was the failed affiliation with the International Brotherhood of the Teamsters and the resulting strike between 1971-1972.
Posted inHistory
Masterminds mull in the mountains
Not in chronological order, and without necessarily chasing the headliners, the following looks at some interesting highlights of Ideas Fest with continuing relevance — particularly space exploration, social media, and AI.
Posted inHistory
Embedded with the eggheads
When viewed from outside today’s privileged event, with venture capitalists and CEOs populating the multi-faceted panels, skepticism can arise; yet, few other conference locales can match such a disarming Shangri-La for crosspollination.
Posted inHistory
From Bauhaus to birdhouse
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.