The Aspen Times marks 125th anniversary

Today’s Aspen Times is a bit dated.

In observance of today’s 125th anniversary of The Aspen Times, we have reprinted the four-page debut edition, published on April 23, 1881. Print readers are finding it wrapped around this week’s Aspen Times Weekly. For online readers, we have reprinted just a few of the many articles contained in the tight columns and small type of the old paper, copies of which were made available by the Aspen Historical Society.

At 125 years and counting, The Aspen Times is (we think) the oldest, continuously operating business in Aspen, though it has seen innumerable changes in more than a century of existence. It has seen many owners, and variations in its format, and even its name. It has been both a daily newspaper and a weekly, eventually evolving into the daily publication plus a separate weekly edition that it is today.

The inaugural edition offered a lengthy account of the miners who made their way from Leadville to Aspen. Ironically, there was a story about Aspen’s wealth ” of a far different nature than the financial success enjoyed by some of its denizens and visitors today.

We’ve also posted an accounting of the mining town’s first grave, a letter to the editor welcoming publication of The Aspen Times and a note from the publisher, declaring “We mean business, and we’ve come to stay.”

Read on.