Willoughby: Where y’all from?

You may be one of the hundreds of daily commuters to Aspen living down valley. If you live in Lazy Glen and are traveling and someone asks you where you are from, do you say Lazy Glen or Aspen? Where you sleep might not be where you identify as home. On the other hand, if you have children in the schools in Basalt, you are more likely to say Lazy Glen. Not much has changed in this regard for 60 years.

After college and returning to Aspen to work as a teacher, I looked for housing I could afford. My wife and I bought a brand-new, single-wide mobile home in Aspen Village that at that time was just adding more spaces. Four-lane 82 from Carbondale on up was years away from construction, but except on horrible winter storm days, it was a short and pleasant commute. Everything I did except sleep at home was in Aspen. As an Aspen native, even though I wasn’t living in Aspen, to me I was living in Aspen.

A few years later, we wanted a larger home, so we found a bargain in Emma.  It was a longer commute, but except for doing our grocery shopping in Basalt, the rest of what we would call home was in Aspen. Most people did not know where Emma was. However, the older generation did. Emma was a railroad stop, and there was a school there. My father remembered playing basketball in high school in what later was known as the Emma store. 

My circle of acquaintances, mostly newcomers to Aspen, went through a similar process. Some built homes in the Snowmass Valley. Oldtimers had a different understanding of it. In the old papers when the Times listed daily comings and goings, they would report on individuals coming or going to Snowmass. Some had homes in both places — there were ranchers who were involved in Aspen’s mines, or mine owners who had ranches there. Like with Emma, Snowmass was a railroad stop.

The Woody Creek area became a popular location. In previous generations, those who lived there called it home, not Aspen, because they went to Aspen mostly for business. There was a school there and a railroad stop.

The 1960s growth spurt when many of Aspen’s condominiums were built provided enough competition to keep housing and rent prices reasonable. That changed when the town growth continued, but housing slowed as Aspen’s “no growth” policies were implemented slowing down housing production and increasing the cost. Simultaneously, the number of commuters increased. Basalt, that was considered for a long time to be a long commune, became a short one. It kept creeping down the valley and then on to Silt and Newcastle.

The dividing line between whether you identified Aspen as home or your commute location largely came down to if you were a family, having your children in Aspen’s schools or your local school. The identity, for others who were not families was also what has, ever since then, been the discussion of community.  Schools, churches, community organizations, volunteer opportunities, and other important amenities are the foundation of community whether you live there or participate from nearby.

For me, the final change was, as a teacher, knowing parents who commuted by air. Parents could work in Los Angeles and go back and forth having a life in both places simultaneously. However, it did seem to me (likely because of the children) that Aspen was “home.” Telecommuting also may have changed things, likely COVID accelerating it. It has taken decades, but another change that you would only understand if you have been there for a long time is that while for decades it was dozens of miles between those railroad stops, schools, and clusters of houses, growth has filled in miles of the valley. 

For identity, where does one end and the other begin?

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.