This site last updated:
Ashcroft originally known as Castle Forks City
and then Chloride until 1882, was a mining town located ten miles south of
Aspen. A few buildings remain standing as a testament to the town's past.
GHOST TOWN: ASHCROFT, COLORADO By JIM PETTENGILL10/11/2017
Prospectors
Charles B. Culver and Amos Kindt spent the winter of 1879– 80 at the forks of
Castle Creek, 12 miles south of Aspen in central Colorado’s Elk Mountains. In
May 1880 Culver and William F. Coxhead filed claims in the area, founded Castle
Forks City and promoted their discovery. Others soon arrived, and in August the
town site company offered 864 lots at $5 each, the 97 members of the Miners’
Protective Association having first choice. In 1881 Coxhead sold his share to
town promoter T.E. Ashcraft.
By year’s end the town’s population had swelled
to 200 and was served by stage lines from Buena Vista, Aspen and Leadville. The
town name changed to Chloride, then Ashcroft (a variation on Ashcraft) in 1882.
Ore samples assayed as high as 12,613 ounces of silver to the ton, and the town
boomed. Crews built a new wagon road over Pearl Pass to the Denver & Rio Grande
railhead at Crested Butte, and Leadville millionaire H.A.W. Tabor bought half
interest in the richest mine, the Tam O’Shanter, for $100,000. In September
1881, in a bit of shameless self-promotion, Tabor told The Denver Tribune: “I’m
afraid to go and look at this big vein [the Tam O’Shanter]. Everybody who’s been
up there has come back crazy. I think it’s safer to stay here, if I want to keep
my head.” In 1883 Tabor and wife Baby Doe visited Ashcroft and treated the town
to a banquet, a ball and free drinks for all at every saloon. Population peaked
at between 2,000 and 3,500, with six hotels, 20 saloons, two grocery stores, a
meat market, two newspapers, a school and a bowling alley.
Ashcroft’s
fortunes began to decline in 1884, as its ore deposits proved less extensive and
of lower quality than expected. When miners discovered richer silver deposits
near Aspen, and rumors spread of a planned railroad connection there, Ashcroft’s
residents left in droves, taking their buildings with them. By 1887 the
population had dropped to 70. Mining dribbled along in Ashcroft until silver
prices crashed in 1893, busting the local economy. In Aspen 50 mines closed
putting 2,000 men out of work. Ashcroft supported a few small operations, manned
by itinerant “tramp miners.” Among them was Carroll Coberly, who came to town in
1906 to help clear an ice-blocked tunnel at the Montezuma. The next summer an
inexperienced manager built a mill at what Coberly called “the wrong place,” and
over the next five years snow slides took out boardinghouses, tram towers and
outbuildings.
Through the 1930s Ashcroft’s population dwindled to a few older
bachelors mainly interested in hunting, fishing, reading and fraternizing at Dan
MacArthur’s saloon. They held periodic elections among themselves for the
offices of mayor and justice of the peace. The last of this group, Jack Leahy,
died in 1939. In the mid-1930s the Highland Bavarian Corp. (HBC), led by
sportsman Ted Ryan and Olympic bobsled champion Billy Fiske, built a lodge north
of Ashcroft and planned to build a large ski resort. World War II intervened,
and when Fiske died in combat, Ryan leased Ashcroft to the U.S. Army for
training of its 10th Mountain Division. After the war Ryan hired dogsledder
Stuart Mace to serve as caretaker of Ashcroft. In the late 1950s the town and
Mace’s huskies starred in the television series Sergeant Preston of the Yukon.
Mace devoted the rest of his life to the preservation of Ashcroft.
In 1974
HBC completed a land exchange with the U.S. Forest Service, and Ashcroft became
public property. It won National Historic Site designation in 1975. Today 13
buildings remain, half of which are original to the town. Maintained by the
Aspen Historical Society, it is open year-round, with daily guided tours
available June through September. Visit www.aspenhistorysociety.com/
ashcroftmuseum.html for details.
Photos courtesy of
Keith Boyer
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
State Coordinator Asst State Coordinator |
Asst.
State Coordinator |
|
County Coordinator |
© 2002 by Gail Meyer Kilgore for the benefit of the USGenWeb® Project.
A
big thank you is in order for the previous county coordinators,
Gail
Meyer Kilgore,
Charles
Barnum,
Rod
Skinner,
and
Vikki Gray!
If
you would like to contribute your information to this page, please
contact me
If you would like to volunteer as a transcriber, county coordinator, cemetery transcriptions, cemetery gravestone photographs or just about anything email Rebecca Maloney