Mines and mills have given way to beautiful homes on the hillsides above Aspen, a town whose transformation from riches to rags to riches is part of the fabric of Colorado. A 2,350-pound, 93-percent-pure silver nugget taken in three pieces from Aspen's Smuggler Mine was to be displayed at the Chicago Columbian Exposition in 1893 along with the Silver Queen, a sculpture made of silver, gold and minerals from the Aspen area. Yet the nugget never made it, symbolizing both the apex and the beginning of the end of the silver era. Learn More...