Willoughby: What would a child experience in Aspen’s first 20 years?

Thinking back from my childhood, beginning around first grade, I was a witness to vast changes in Aspen. Those are powerful memories. Recently, I did a thought exercise, trying to imagine what an Aspen first-grader might remember for their first 20 years during Aspen’s beginning years, starting in 1886. There were only 10 first-graders in 1886. I was able to track five of them; the others likely moved before ninth grade. I ended the timespan at around 20 years because most of those five had departed Aspen by around 1906. 

Ava Stockman witnessed one of the most import turning points in Aspen’s story: the arrival of the railroads. When she was in second grade, she was one of over 100 whom the pastor of the Methodist Church, J. R. Radar, recruited to take an excursion by train to Glenwood. It was a fundraiser for the church. The November trip began boarding the train at 8 a.m. It took an hour and a half to get to Glenwood, which would have seemed miraculously fast at that time. Many on the excursion had never been to Glenwood. The railroad company, the D&RG, took them on a side trip up the river canyon east of Glenwood to see the scenery and to go through a railroad tunnel. When they returned, Glenwood showed them some of its best features, including the swimming pool.

Stockman must have marveled at Aspen’s growth. Her 1886 first grade with only 10 students compared to there being more than one first grade class a decade later. After high school, she became a second grade teacher and renewed her teaching certificate, passing the teachers’ exam administered by the County Board of Education. The Aspen Times noted many journeys by train by her during summer vacations and to visit her family in Emma. It looks like she moved there permanently in 1906.

Grace Newitt also grew up in a Methodist family. Even at only first-grade age, she participated making and selling “ladies handiwork” items for the Methodist Bazar-Fair. She was involved in many activities where she had public exposure — the examples demonstrate how quickly Aspen became a family community. She was a performer in a play arranged and produced by her teachers, Lillie and Flora Stoddard, at the Rink Opera House. That performing center predated the Wheeler Opera House. In third grade, she participated at the Masquerade skate at the Rink Opera House, where she was sighted for her “notable costume” dressing as a Turkish lady.

In 1890, she competed in the New Year’s Day toboggan races held at Hallam Lake. She, with a partner, Blanche Barrett, took second place with a prize of a turkey. At that time, the sled slope there was, “the most popular amusement in town.” She continued her participation in local activities, participating in 1897 in the Laurel Club.

Aspen was a center for union activity — and not just the miner’s union. In 1900, Newitt was elected an officer of the Retail Clerk’s Union, No. 99.

Bessie Herrick graduated from Aspen High School in 1891. Like most of Aspen from that time until 1896, she was fixated on the national politics that influenced Aspen’s major business: mining. She was a signatory on the Believing the Money Question that asked locals to “lay aside party differences and subordinate all other issues,” to focus on fighting for the free coinage of silver at the 16-to-1 ratio with gold.

She may have had some political connections or just earned it, but in 1896, she received her commission as a notary public from Colorado’s Governor Albert McIntire. In 1897, she was a stenographer for Aspen’s county court. In 1898, she moved on and became a clerk for the post office and declined to run for city clerk. In all those positions, she had a close view of what happened legally and politically in Aspen.

One of the few males in that first grade class of 1886 was Frank Anderson. At a very young age, around 13 or 14, he was working as an express messenger for the Rio Grande Railroad. He also signed the Believing the Money Question petition but disappeared from the Aspen scene soon after. He did return once in 1939 looking at mining properties.

Surely, their memories were passed on to the next generations — what wonderful stories they may have told.

Tim Willoughby’s family story parallels Aspen’s. He began sharing folklore while teaching at Aspen Country Day School and Colorado Mountain College. Now a tourist in his native town, he views it with historical perspective. Reach him at redmtn2@comcast.net.