Aspen History: Making the Mall

“So far, mall construction is moving along on schedule,” announced the Aspen Times on May 20, 1976. This was according to Jim Furniss, construction manager for the City of Aspen. ‘We have the torn-up pavement removed from Mill and Cooper and a portion of Galena, and will have the tear-up and removal finished on Hyman Avenue by the end of the week,” he said. ‘We expect to start laying bricks by June 15.” The bricks for the mall are antique bricks made about 1900, that are now being taken out of streets in St. Louis, MO. Furniss said that 26 railroad cars of bricks will be coming into Aspen. ‘So far we have unloaded six of the railroad cars and 90,000 bricks are piled up and down on the Rio Grande property,’ he said. ‘We have 20 more carloads of bricks to come.’ Furniss said that the city of Aspen has purchased the total 500,000 bricks which the City of St. Louis made available. ‘I convinced the City Council to purchase the extra 200,000 bricks in case a mall go-ahead is coming in a few years,’ he said, ‘because I don’t think we could ever get a match for those bricks.’ The three-block permanent mall will use about 320,000 bricks.” This image shows stacks of bricks ready to be installed in the mall.