 Prospectors who had missed out on the earlier mining boom that built Leadville began to head west, drawn by reports of vast untapped silver deposits in the Roaring Fork Valley just beyond the Continental Divide.They began crossing what was then known as Hunter Pass, in defiance of an order from Governor Frederick Walker Pitkin not to do so until the federal government had negotiated a peace treaty with the Ute people.The future eastern half of Highway 82 came first, as a rough path over Independence Pass that soon reached Aspen.