Devin Flores

In the early months of 1905, the whole state of Colorado was in an uproar. Miners were on strike, an election clerk had just jumped out of a moving train while fleeing the law, and nobody knew who the governor really was. And it was all caused by one of the most corrupt elections in American history.

The Silver Queen of Aspen was once the crown jewel of the Colorado Mineral Palace in Pueblo. Along with her consort, King Coal of Trinidad, she reigned over a glittering kingdom of gems and precious metals, at the center of a vast display of our state’s mineral wealth.

But in 1939, the Mineral Palace closed its doors for the last time. And the Silver Queen was never seen by the public again. To this day, nobody knows exactly what happened to her.

In the far south of Colorado, near the border with New Mexico, there is a distinctive range of tall, flat-topped mesas that stretch from northwest to southeast like the reaching arm of the Sangre de Cristo range. The highest of these mesas is striking against the sky—at 9,633 feet, it is higher than any point in North America east of it. It rises from the surrounding forest like a castle, steep-walled and prominent, and for millions of years it has loomed large over the valley below.

Fishers Peak is one of the most recognizable landmarks in southern Colorado, and has been for centuries.