{"id":2451721,"date":"2019-12-01T22:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-12-02T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/?p=316939"},"modified":"2019-12-01T22:00:00","modified_gmt":"2019-12-02T05:00:00","slug":"paul-andersen-poor-little-rich-town-crested-butte","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/paul-andersen-poor-little-rich-town-crested-butte\/","title":{"rendered":"Paul Andersen: \u2018Poor Little Rich Town\u2019 Crested Butte"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

The perfect candidate for a Sister City relationship with Aspen is Crested Butte. These mountain towns share close proximity in the Elk Range, and they have both seen community morph into commodity.<\/p>\n

Some Crested Butteicians may bridle at the idea that their beloved community has become a commodity, but an ongoing series in the Crested Butte News has been painting just that picture. The reasons are complex, but it boils down to an escalating real estate market that is killing the town\u2019s soul.<\/p>\n

Both Aspen and Crested Butte began as mining centers. Crested Butte predates Aspen in the late 1870s when anthracite coal was mined to fuel the steel mills of Colorado Fuel & Iron in Pueblo, until cheaper energy sources ended mining there in the 1950s.<\/p>\n

Aspen was founded primarily on silver when that metal was still monetized as currency under the Sherman Silver Purchase Act. Aspen\u2019s fortunes took an abrupt downturn in 1893, when Congress repealed the Sherman Act and adopted the gold standard.<\/p>\n

Aspen had an early claim on tourism when Independence Pass became an attraction in the 1920s. Tourism grew when skiing began here in the 1930s. The full-on resort was born when high culture took root in 1949.<\/p>\n

Crested Butte languished through the \u201950s as a forgotten relic of the industrialized West, with some residual mining of heavy metals, until skiing began there in the \u201960s. Crested Butte was then a haven for wayward hippies and dropout college students from Western State in Gunnison, which is how I came to live there in 1970.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will never be another Aspen!\u201d was the mantra in Crested Butte while I was editor of the Crested Butte Chronicle, until moving over the hill to Aspen in 1984. Aspen\u2019s glitz and glamour were easy pickin\u2019s then as CB celebrated communal authenticity with unbridled esprit des corps.<\/p>\n

Today, Crested Butte is going through what Aspen went through 40 years ago, and it\u2019s painful. The allure of big money has been too tantalizing for what CB News publisher Mark Reaman refers to as the \u201cmid-timers,\u201d many of whom are cashing in.<\/p>\n

The funky-down-home-potluck-dinner-costume-revelry vibe that has set the Butte apart since the first vanguard of escapees from \u201cthe real world\u201d landed in Shangri-la in the \u201960s is being co-opted.<\/p>\n

\u201cCrested Butte is in a vortex of upheaval and change,\u201d reported the News in part one of a penetrating, sobering series. \u201cMany feel it\u2019s not the locals who are going to have a say in this town\u2019s future and development \u2014 it\u2019s the big money.\u201d<\/p>\n

A great irony in this vortex is AMAX, a once prominent mining company that fomented an environmental battle for the heart of the town when it announced in 1977 plans to mine 300 million tons of molybdenum ore from Red Lady Bowl on Mount Emmons, a bookend to the town\u2019s western boundary.<\/p>\n

Crested Butte fought against the dire socio-economic impacts of a 25,000-ton-per-day mine that would destroy the mystique of this cul-de-sac winter haven, this idyllic refuge from the military-industrial complex and the myopic bottom line of corporate profits.<\/p>\n

Now real estate and the overarching tourist economy have eclipsed AMAX and its successors as the erosive agent carving away at the town\u2019s core values with vacant second homes, short-term rentals and a price spike that has put housing well beyond the means of most resident workers.<\/p>\n

The moneyed forces won out in a Pyrrhic victory that has left those in love with that small grid of streets in the East River Valley dismayed, disillusioned and dystopic. If those former AMAX execs could see Crested Butte now, there might be some crowing due.<\/p>\n

Would the industrialization of Crested Butte have proved a better course? Certainly not. But the insidious nature of commoditization is proving just as pernicious<\/p>\n

\u201cThe bait that has opened communities to exploitation and destruction has always been ready cash,\u201d warns Wendy Berry. \u201cThe only preventive and the only remedy is for the people to choose one another, and their place, over the rewards offered them by outside investors \u2026 to understand itself as a common dependence, a common life, a common ground.\u201d<\/p>\n

In pained sympathy, I cry out, \u201cRESIST\u201d!<\/p>\n

Paul Andersen\u2019s column appears on Mondays. He may be reached at andersen@rof.net<\/a>.<\/p>\n

via:: The Aspen Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The perfect candidate for a Sister City relationship with Aspen is Crested Butte. These mountain towns share close proximity in the Elk Range, and they have both seen community morph into commodity. Some Crested Butteicians may bridle at the idea that their beloved community has become a commodity, but an ongoing series in the Crested […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2451721","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-local-news"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-19 04:05:03","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley's Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2451721","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2451721"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2451721\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2451721"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2451721"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2451721"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}