A new exhibit on “Aspen’s Transportation Dilemmas” at the Aspen Historical Society shows it has never been easy getting to Aspen.

The Utes walked on ancient trails alongside rivers and over high passes, but they also avoided traveling to the valley altogether in winter.

In 1873, the men of the Hayden Survey dragged mules along the old trails as they explored and documented the territory.

Soon merchants and freighters were using heavy wooden wagons pulled by straining teams of horses to bring in goods for the bustling silver mining camp on the Roaring Fork River. By 1881 some wagon masters were paying to use new toll roads hacked into the mountainside below Independence Pass.

And in 1887 two railroads were racing through the mountains to reach Aspen. The Denver Rio Grande Railroad made it to what is now Rio Grande Park on Oct. 27, prompting a three-day celebration. The Colorado Midland Railroad came over Hagerman Pass and down the Fryingpan River Valley to Aspen Junction, which is now Basalt. The Midland lost the race and was delayed until Feb. 2, 1888, as it waited for a shipment of steel needed to complete the Maroon Creek bridge.

Today, some 20,000 cars and trucks will likely crawl across the same 651-foot-long bridge, the oldest bridge still in service in Colorado.

In 1906, Ted Cooper of Aspen bought a car from a Denver auto dealer and proudly drove it down Hyman Avenue past cheering crowds. It was Aspen’s first car and certainly not its last.

Early bicycle races to Glenwood were popular and the town newspaper once advised women how to behave on bicycles in an article detailing “Don’ts for Wheel Women.”

In the mid-1940s, the men of the 10th Mountain Division used crude skis and boots to traverse the mountains between Camp Hale and Aspen.

The Aspen airport was a bare bones airfield until the late 1950s when Tom Sardy persuaded the county commissioners to make it a real airport. Hence the name: Sardy Field.

In 1972, a group of Aspen High School students spurred the creation of the Cooper and Hyman Avenue walking malls and the same year local bus service began in town. Now the Roaring Fork Transportation Authority carries more than 4 million passengers a year.

And as the exhibit documents, the residents of Pitkin County and the city of Aspen have voted 25 times on Entrance to Aspen ballot questions in 38 years, not counting last year’s vote to install bus lanes between Buttermilk and the roundabout.

These historical highlights are well-documented and displayed in the Historical Society exhibit called “Go West, Young Man! But Park at the Intercept Lot,” which opened yesterday.

The exhibit is the first to be installed in the remodeled second floor of the Wheeler/Stallard House on Bleeker Street in Aspen’s West End. While the first floor reflects Victorian furnishings of the time, the upstairs bedroom of the house has been transformed into an effective exhibit space that allows curators to guide visitors to different displays.

The transportation dilemmas exhibit opens with shelves set with colorful period footwear, including stout thigh-high boots. A recreation of a Ute travois made of two straight branches used to haul a fur-covered bundle of goods behind dogs or horses sits beneath the room’s main windows. In the back, a room is set up as a train depot that includes a wall-size photograph of the back platform of the old Midland Railroad depot on what is now Dean Street. The large image brings back to life the hustle and bustle of a train arriving in the silver boomtown of Aspen.

There’s also a wall of old Colorado license plates that tells the story of the county-specific “ZG” plates that were issued from 1959 to 1982 and today still connotes an Aspen local.

And if there are still fresh ideas about the Entrance to Aspen, a chalkboard has been set up for visitors to share them.

The exhibit represents a new approach for the Aspen Historical Society, which now has a better financial footing after voters in 2005 approved a taxing district to support the nonprofit organization.

“This is our first real thorough in-house exhibit,” said Lisa Hancock, curator of collections for the historical society. “I’m really proud of it.”

“We didn’t have any outside curatorial help,” said archivist Anna Lookabill Scott, who worked closely with Hancock on the exhibit.

The pair’s research on how people have gotten to, and gotten around, Aspen turned up a number of historical nuggets, including that Aspen once had a small electric street car line that ran from downtown Aspen out to the grand homes located way downvalley in the West End.

“We learned so many new stories or confirmed stories that we knew,” said Scott. “Through our historic newspapers that have been digitized online we got the exact details and that was an exciting aspect.”

Tuesday’s opening of the exhibit is the start of a busy summer of programs for the historical society, which also operates the Holden/Marolt Mining and Ranching Museum.

That museum, located across the Castle Creek pedestrian bridge, has been significantly upgraded over the past several years thanks to the tireless enthusiasm and financial support of Carl Bergman of Carl’s Pharmacy and the Miner’s Building, who is a big fan of old machines such as the steam-powered saw used to cut logs into lumber that is now on the property.

And new this summer for the historical society is the Aspen History Coach. It is a six-person electric car sponsored in part by Coates, Reid and Waldron that will pick people up for tours at the Wheeler Opera House, drive them to the Wheeler/Stallard House, and then out to Holden/Marolt Museum before returning to the Wheeler.

Mike Monroney, a veteran Crystal Palace dinner theater performer, will be chauffeuring history buffs between museums in the nimble, quiet and comfortable Gem 6 electric car purchased from Aspen Electric Cars.

“Our job is to take advantage of these historical resources and get people out to see them,” said Monroney, whose title, and job description, is also “history coach.”

Nina Gabianelli, another former Palace performer, is now the society’s sites and tours manager and she is helping coordinate the history coach tours, which will run four times a day starting between 12:15 and 2:30 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday. The tours last two hours and 15 minutes and cost $25 for adults.

Admission to the new exhibit at the Wheeler/Stallard House at 620 West Bleeker is $6 for adults and also includes admission to the Holden/Marolt Museum. A formal opening for the exhibit, which is co-sponsored by the city of Aspen Transportation Department and RFTA, will be held on July 5.

More information is available at 925-3721 or at www.aspenhistorysociety.com.

bgs@aspendailynews.com