Wheeler/Stallard Museum

620 W. Bleeker St., Aspen
1 hour to 1½  hour tour, depending on class size
Different versions are adaptable to different age students

Step back in time and explore life in the 1880s in the Victorian mansion built by iconic figure Jerome B. Wheeler.

Includes:

• Tour – Objects Past & Present
• Exhibition – Decade by Decade: Aspen Revealed

Optional activities:

• Native storytelling and history program with an AHS Educator followed by a conversation with Skyler Lomahaftewa, Northern Ute Tribal Member, discussing life as a modern-day Ute.
• Butter making
• Candle making

Ute and Indigenous History & Culture Conversation
1 hour program

In the tradition of oral history, hear Ute stories, and learn what it was like for the native people of Colorado hundreds of years ago prior to their removal from the area, followed by a conversation with Skyler Lomahaftewa, Northern Ute Tribal Member, discussing life as a modern-day Ute.

Includes:

• Native storytelling and Ute history with AHS Educator
• Visit with Northern Ute Tribal Member

“History on Stage” Museum Theatre Character Presentations
45-minute programs
option for different characters to visit each month throughout the school year

Step back in time with first-person, costumed presentations of former Aspenites in their own words. Through this engaging series, students will “meet” characters from the past for an exciting experience of local history.

Character options include:

• Native: John Duncan (Ute Tribal Officer)
• Mining Era: Sarah M. Gillespie, Miner Gus
• Quiet Years Era: Hildur Anderson
• Renaissance/Ski Era: Gretl Uhl 

Storytelling Series
30 minute program, monthly visit throughout the school year

Hotel Jerome Tour
Hotel Jerome, Aspen
1 hour tour
Explore the lobby and first floor of the Hotel Jerome, which has been at the center of community life since its doors opened in 1889.

Neighborhood Walking Tour: West End
West End neighborhood, Aspen
1½ hour tour
A stroll through Aspen’s Victorian West End residential neighborhood, with a focus on history and architecture. Learn little-known facts about the neighborhood’s homes and the people who lived in them.

Aspen Historical Society’s trunks are filled with reproduction artifacts to touch, hold and use. Each trunk includes a teacher’s guide to help direct activities and bring depth to the materials within the trunk.

Fee: Free to schools and non profits with a $50 refundable security deposit

Each trunk can be used as a “show and tell,” as a self-contained unit, or as a jumping off point for more extensive avenues of study. Although the kit is devised to be self-contained and is meant for children from 9 – 13 years of age in a classroom setting, it can also be used for adult groups with an accompanying speaker and for younger children with extra supervision. (Ages 8+)

• Mining Trunk
  This trunk focuses on mining in Colorado and, more specifically, silver mining in the Aspen area. A variety of related topics are introduced so that the student is exposed to mining from different perspectives, and a variety of projects are included that promote learning in subject areas such as math and science.
• Prehistoric Peoples Discovery Kit (Ancestral Puebloans)
  This was Aspen Historical Society’s first traveling educational history trunk! The kit explores the prehistoric peoples of Colorado with a major emphasis on the Ancestral Puebloans from the southwestern part of the state. Users of the kit are able to touch the reproduced artifacts in the kit for a “hands-on” learning experience. The kit also offers a glimpse at the ways of prehistoric people, including their means of survival, their home life and social structure, their religious practices and beliefs, and their interaction with other peoples.
• Ranching Trunk
  Along with mining and skiing, ranching and farming shaped our valley, its character and its people. During the “Quiet Years” between 1900 and 1945, farming and ranching were the economic backbone of the Roaring Fork Valley. Without these industries, Aspen might well have become another Colorado ghost town.
  The Ranching Trunk was designed to help teachers reach as many of the Colorado Model Content Standards in history, geography, and reading and writing as possible. The recent emphasis placed on literacy has also been taken into account, and reading and writing activities have been incorporated wherever possible and appropriate. The Ranching Trunk covers many areas including general history, people of the ranching community, ranching work, community and life.
• Ski Trunk (coming soon)
• Ute People Trunk (coming soon)

Mentorships
Interested students are invited to work one on one with AHS staff and community volunteers. Please contact AHS if you have a student specifically interested in history.

In-Classroom Programs
Thank you for your interest in hosting a guest speaker from Aspen Historical Society in your classroom! We are passionate about the power of local histories to engage and educate students throughout the Roaring Fork Valley. We offer a variety of programs for grades 10 – 12; browse the menu below or call us to curate a program of your own!

• Native People of the Roaring Fork Valley
• The Mining Boom, Railroads and Early Colorado
• Immigration and the Roaring Fork Valley
• Tourism and Leisure in the Roaring Fork Valley: From Health-Seekers to Skiing
• Farming, Ranching, and the Quiet Years
• Women’s History in the Roaring Fork Valley

Internships
Summer and winter internship opportunities are available. Click here for more information.