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The City of Aspen is the Home Rule Municipality that is the county seat and the most populous municipality of Pitkin County, Colorado, United States.〔(【引用サイトリンク】accessdate=2011-06-07 )〕〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Colorado County Seats )〕 The city population was 6,658 at the 2010 United States Census. Aspen is situated in a remote area of the Rocky Mountains' Sawatch Range and Elk Mountains, along the Roaring Fork River at an elevation just below above sea level on the Western Slope, west of the Continental Divide. Founded as a mining camp during the Colorado Silver Boom and later named "Aspen" because of the abundance of aspen trees in the area, the city boomed during the 1880s, its first decade of existence. That early era ended when the Panic of 1893 led to a collapse in the silver market, and the city began a half-century known as "the quiet years" during which its population steadily declined, reaching a nadir of less than a thousand by 1930. Aspen's fortunes reversed in the mid-20th century when neighboring Aspen Mountain was developed into a ski resort, and industrialist Walter Paepcke bought many properties in the city and redeveloped them. Today it is home to three renowned institutions, two of which Paepcke helped found, that have international importance: the Aspen Music Festival and School, the Aspen Institute, and the Aspen Center for Physics.〔http://www.aspenphys.org〕 In the late 20th century, the city became a popular retreat for celebrities. Gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson worked out of a downtown hotel and ran unsuccessfully for county sheriff. Singer John Denver wrote two songs about Aspen after settling there. Both of them popularized Aspen among the countercultural youth of the 1970s as an ideal place to live, and the city continued to grow even as it gained notoriety for some of the era's hedonistic excesses as well, particularly its drug culture. Today the musicians and movie stars have been joined by corporate executives. As a result of this influx of wealth, Aspen boasts the most expensive real estate prices in the United States and most middle-class residents can no longer afford to live there. It remains a popular tourist destination, with outdoor recreation in the surrounding White River National Forest serving as a summertime complement to the four ski areas in the vicinity. ==History== The city's roots are traced to the winter of 1879, when a group of miners ignored pleas by Frederick Pitkin, governor of Colorado, to return across the Continental Divide due to an uprising of the Ute Indians. Originally named Ute City, the small community was renamed Aspen in 1880, and, in its peak production years of 1891 and 1892, surpassed Leadville as the United States' most productive silver-mining district.〔Charles W. Henderson, 1926, ''Mining in Colorado'', U.S. Geological Survey, Professional Paper 138, p.176, 201.〕 Production expanded due to the passage of the Sherman Silver Purchase Act of 1890, which doubled the government's purchase of silver. By 1893, Aspen had banks, a hospital, a police department, two theaters, an opera house and electric lights. Economic collapse came with the Panic of 1893, when President Cleveland called a special session of Congress and repealed the act. Within weeks, many of the Aspen mines were closed and thousands of miners were put out of work. It was proposed that silver be recognized as legal tender and the People's Party (populists) adopted that as one of its main issues; Davis H. Waite, an Aspen newspaperman and agitator was elected governor of Colorado on the Democratic Ticket; but in time the movement failed. Eventually, after wage cuts, mining revived somewhat, but production declined and by the 1930 census only 705 residents remained. Remaining, however, were fine stocks of old commercial buildings and residences, along with excellent snow. Aspen's development as a ski resort first flickered in the 1930s when investors conceived of a ski area, but the project was interrupted by World War II. Friedl Pfeifer, a member of the 10th Mountain Division who had trained in the area, returned to the area and linked up with industrialist Walter Paepcke and his wife Elizabeth. The Aspen Skiing Corporation was founded in 1946 and the city quickly became a well-known resort, hosting the FIS World Championships in 1950. Paepcke also played an important role in bringing the Goethe Bicentennial Convocation to Aspen in 1949, an event held in a newly designed tent by the architect Eero Saarinen. Aspen was now on the path to becoming an internationally known ski resort and cultural center, home of the Aspen Music Festival and School. The area would continue to grow with the development of three additional ski areas, Buttermilk (1958), Aspen Highlands (1958), and Snowmass (1967). In 1977, notorious serial killer Ted Bundy, while in the Pitkin County Courthouse in Aspen for a pre-trial hearing, jumped from a second-story window and escaped. He remained free for six days, hiding out on Aspen Mountain, before he was arrested while attempting to drive a stolen car out of the city. In 1977, Aspen was thoroughly photographed for the Aspen Movie Map project funded by the U.S. Department of Defense. The Movie Map is one of the earliest examples of virtual reality software. Aspen is notable as the smallest radio market tracked by Arbitron, ranked at #302. Local media in Aspen includes two radio stations: KSNO and KSPN; two daily newspapers: ''The Aspen Times'' and ''The Aspen Daily News''; three local, lifestyle magazines: ''Aspen Sojourner'' (), ''Aspen Magazine'' () and the bi-annual ''Aspen Peak''; one digital magazine, (Skollie Magazine's Aspen Edition ); as well as one local, live, lifestyle television channel Aspen 82. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Aspen, Colorado」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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