years". Residents did not stop dying, and in 1900 Aspen Grove got competition from the elaborate Red Butte Cemetery, on the western edge of the city. It was even more modern, with driving paths and irrigated gardens, and many of the dead buried at Aspen Grove were moved there. Around this time, Evergreen Cemetery seems to have started being called Ute Cemetery. It is not known whether this was from the street at the cemetery's rear, the nearby spring of that name, or the city's original name. The advent of Red Butte led to discussions about replacing Ute with two new cemeteries, but these never came to pass. City records show that 13 people were buried in Ute during the 1920s, many of them older residents who were indigent at the time of their deaths and could not afford markers. Aspen's population continued to decline to fewer than a thousand by the Depression, and only one burial was recorded during that time. That was in 1935, just before skiing enthusiasts discovered the almost deserted town and the slopes of Aspen Mountain, ideal for their rapidly growing sport. Even as Aspen began growing again in the later 20th century, only two more burials took place at Ute. The new generation of residents left the cemetery untended, and as the few relatives of its dead who remained died themselves or moved elsewhere the cemetery became overgrown. Vandals destroyed some of the headstones, or sold them to shops downtown. Late in the century, affluent newer residents took an interest in historic preservation. Some lobbied the city to restore the cemetery, and its listing on the Register began a two-year process paid for by the city and a grant from History Colorado. Volunteers cleaned the cemetery, trimmed growth around the gravesites and improved the walking trails. The new monuments at the entrance on Ute Avenue were installed, and professional stoneworkers restored the carved stones monuments. It is one of the few historic cemeteries in Colorado to have been so thoroughly restored. See also National Register of Historic Places in Pitkin County, Colorado References External links Cemeteries on the National Register of Historic Places in Colorado 1880 establishments in Colorado National Register of Historic Places in Aspen, Colorado