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| ^ Glenn Beck with his skis. |
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| ^ Aspen’s Camp Fire Girls, with skis, early 1930s. |
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The Silver Crash of 1893 ended Aspen’s booming mining economy, and the town slipped gradually into the period known as the "Quiet Years." Ranching and farming sustained the economy as the mines gradually closed. The railroads, built to haul ore from Aspen’s fabulous silver mines, now carried passengers, potatoes, sheep, and cattle. Locals continued to ski for fun. In 1916 the Winter Club cut a ski trail behind the high school (today’s Red Brick Arts Center) down to Hallam Lake (today’s Aspen Center for Environmental Studies). Russ Holmes, born on his parents’ Owl Creek Ranch, skied there as a child, "straight down on homemade skis." Children in Aspen’s unfashionable East End skied the mine dumps on homemade skis.
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^ Erma Rogers jammed her car into the entrance of the Aspen State Bank in 1927, creating this enduring image of the “Quiet Years.” Jerry Hiatt, observing the fracas with a friend, worked odd jobs to earn a pair of real skis from Sears Roebuck.
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