Feeding the population of Ashcroft was extremely difficult and expensive. A short growing season and high altitude (9,500 feet above sea level) made it necessary to haul in most food supplies.
Subsisting on a diet of dry beans, canned goods, potatoes, bacon, bread and coffee, residents of Ashcroft added wildlife to their menus. Elk, deer, trout, rabbit, grouse, bear and even marmot populations were severely impacted. The elk herds were so decimated that elk had to be reintroduced to the area by train from Jackson Hole, Wyoming in 1913. It is often possible to identify the former location of a cabin by the remaining gooseberry bushes planted by the miners next to their cabins as a source of scurvy-preventing vitamin C.
