Saddle Sore: Something about Aspen that keeps people around

How nice it is now, our little burg, all clean and shiny for the most part, most empty lots built upon, the downtown wall-to-wall with brick, concrete, asphalt, with a few wooden structures thrown in for posterity. That’s the town, the place where we keep our marbles. I’m not talking about the people. 

Back in earlier times, when I rode the school bus in from Woody Creek, especially in the winter or with an inversion, there was always a huge, blackish, gray cloud hanging over the town. People needed to heat their houses, cook their breakfast, and get on with it. Coal or wood stoves or coal-fired furnaces or boilers (some propane) provided the heat for most of the houses in the 1950s-1960s and beyond. Two well-known coal brokers were Ed Tiedeman and Pat Hemann.

If it seems difficult, it was the lay of the land. Electricity in town was provided by the power plant on Castle Creek, and however delightful that might seem today, power outages were common, generally occurring between 7 and 9 at night when needed the most. 

To augment the coal cook stove in the kitchen, my maternal grandmother’s sister, Julia Stapleton, installed a coal-fired contraption called a Stoker-Matic in the house, which required small pellets of specially-processed coal to fire and electricity to run the fan, which dispersed heat throughout the house. In the living, at least. Sometimes, there was no electricity through the night, which left the house very cold when morning came. As we sometimes think today that cell phones are more hassle than they’re worth, so my grandmother’s generation thought electricity was sometimes more hassle than it was worth.

Winter was a trying time for those in Aspen. Skiing was taking up more and more of the town’s energy but not without real problems. Reliably, the town water system would freeze up, bringing many households to their knees, unless, of course, one traveled to the Roaring Fork River behind the Hotel Jerome, bringing whatever large containers could be found. There, water would be scooped from the creek, allowing such ambitious souls enough water to run toilets, washing machines, and other H2O dependent systems. 

Such gathering was also a social event, much like going to the post office, for the entertainment-strapped locals. (For unfortunate tourists, skiers and curiosity seekers alike, what drinking water was available had a tendency to cause diarrhea in our guests, fondly referred to colloquially as “the Aspen crud.”) 

This fall, the leaves are becoming more and more beautiful each day, our namesake aspens dominating the magnificence covering our hillsides. And wistfully, some think back to the early days of Aspen, when, erroneously, we might think it to be more pristine.

It wasn’t a whole lot different back in 1884, when Aspen was not much more than a tent camp, hoping for a magic wand to get the silver trade moving. Giardia had yet to be imbedded in this area, and drinking out of the local creeks was natural, but don’t drink out of the numerous irrigation ditches running through town. Anybody knows that you shouldn’t drink out of these ditches because one can’t be sure of what townspeople might deposit in them. No garbage service, no sewer system. Outhouses could be found behind almost every house and business.

My grandmother and her siblings, born in Aspen in the 1880s, who lived at 233 W. Bleeker when I was a kid, stuck it out until 1964, the year my grandmother died. Her two remaining sisters went to Denver to spend the winter with another sister, and the last brother stuck it out until 1966 or ’67. Well into his 80s, running the coal stove in the kitchen and trying to keep the fancy heater in the living room going convinced him it was time to sell the house and leave Aspen. It was a tragic day for all concerned, me included. The house is still there, but naturally, a little different on the inside. 

The DeWolf family kindly offered to sell it to me after Maggie died, but as you can imagine, even if you could go back, you really wouldn’t belong there anymore. As much as my grandmother’s family loved Aspen, so should it be noted that the DeWolf family did, as well.

There’s something about this town that keeps people around. Maybe because this is where we keep our marbles. And no, I’m not talking about your money. 

Tony Vagneur writes here on Saturdays and welcomes your comments at ajv@sopris.net.

Tony Vagneur writes here on Saturdays and welcomes your comments at ajv@sopris.net.