Varney formed the Varney Tunnel Company, and a settlement of some three hundred people grew up below the tunnels. They erected log cabins, some frame houses, a store, a boardinghouse, two saloons, a sawmill, a mill for the ore, and a big log barn to shelter the mules used in the mines and for transporting concentrates to Aspen and on to Leadville. The road followed the approximate route Varney had taken when he found the outcropping. About 1888 the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad (which had arrived in Aspen the year before) graded an eight-mile roadbed up Woody Creek from the Roaring Fork Valley. But later it was decided shipments of ore from Lenado would not support a branch line. Lenado continued operating as it had been until the Panic of ’93 when the sawmill, mill and mines shut down. Around the turn of the century they were started up again and ran until 1906. Then Lenado lapsed to ghost status until 1917 when lead and zinc were needed during World War I. The Smuggler Leasing Company built a new boardinghouse, rebuilt some of the old houses and opened the sawmill and the mines. Trucks were used to transport the ore for milling and smelting elsewhere. [Illustration: J. E. Spurr, 1898; U.S.G.S.] LENADO BEGAN AS A SILVER CAMP At the time geologist Spurr took the upper photo he remarked that Lenado was in a rather dilapidated condition, having been badly affected by the Silver Panic. His picture was taken from above the Leadville mine, both higher and farther to the left than the 1960 shot. The latter shows the dump of the Aspen Contact mine, the original old barn for the mine mules and one of the old houses dating from the 1880’s. [Illustration: D.K.P., 1960] [Illustration: D.K.P., 1960] LENADO’S NAME MEANS “WOODED” A busy sawmill has saved the town from death in full prophecy of the unknown man who gave it a Spanish name (pronounced Len-yah-do). When the need for strategic metals waned, Lenado folded again. In 1935 Jack Flogaus opened up the sawmill to run continuously thereafter. In the summer of 1960 he employed thirty-three men, five of whose families stayed the year round and ten of whose families were summer residents. The cutting of lumber was done on U. S. Forest Service land on Larkspur Mountain and was limited to spruce only. Lenado is unique because of its sawmill—the only mining camp that was revived from a ghost town by woodcutting.... The story of Ashcroft can almost be told by the Colorado Business Directory which listed its population thus: 1881, 200; 1883, 1,000 in summer, winter, uncertain; 1884, 500; 1885, 100; 1890, 50; 1910, 60.