Holden/Marolt Mining and Ranching Museum, Mining and ranching museum on Highway 82, Aspen, United States

The Holden/Marolt Mining and Ranching Museum occupies the former Holden Lixiviation Works on Aspen's western edge. Its main building is the 1891 sampling house, a one-and-a-half-story wood-frame structure, 77 by 42 feet, with vertical siding, a gabled roof and a central square cupola. Nearby are a restored salt shed, smokestack remains and portions of the sandstone foundation of the 250-foot mill building.

The Holden Lixiviation Works were built in 1891 and used an advanced silver ore processing method that was employed at only a handful of locations worldwide. Operations ceased within months when the economic crisis of 1893 caused silver prices to collapse.

The museum keeps the name Holden/Marolt from the Denver businessman E.R. Holden, who formed the Holden Mining & Smelting Company in 1891, and from the local rancher who later bought the buildings to expand his ranch. The site's open, tree-shaded ground reflects that ranching era, when agriculture shared equal prominence with the little mining left in Aspen.

The site is an open 2½-acre tract on the south side of State Highway 82, just west of Aspen's West End. Paved bike paths and unpaved roads lead in from the highway and from the official parking lot at the end of Marolt Place to the south. The main sampling building and the restored salt shed stand outdoors, so dress for mountain weather.

The processing method used here was one of the rare technologies of its time that employed a chemical leaching process for silver extraction. This particular technique was so uncommon globally that only a handful of similar facilities existed anywhere in the world.