Article by Allen Best
Mountain Life – February 2009 – Colorado Central Magazine
WHAT HAS SCARCELY BEEN MENTIONED in all the reporting about Jim Blanning, the former Aspen resident who deposited four bombs of gasoline in the city’s business district before killing himself on New Year’s Eve, is how closely the basic story line resembles the strange and fearful machinations in two other Colorado mountain towns: Alma and Granby.
In the case at Alma in Park County, the highest incorporated town in the United States, a 50-year-old perpetrator shot and killed a former mayor, firebombed the town hall, then drove a front-end loader into a number of buildings, including the post office, fire department, and water-treatment plant. That was in 1998. The man — who was put into a mental institution — had objected to being forced to connect to the town’s water system.
In 2004, the owner of a muffler shop on the edge of Granby rampaged through the town on a bulldozer, shielded by a concrete-encased cabin, plowing into the town hall, the newspaper office, and the former mayor’s business, among others, before turning a gun on himself at the Gamble’s store. Marvin Heemeyer had felt aggrieved because a concrete batch plant had been permitted near his property — and the newspaper editor had sided with town officials.
True to form, Aspen has the most colorful and bizarre story of all. Blanning was very well known in Aspen, and had been profiled by The Aspen Times in 1976. That, however, was before the trouble over mining claims.
Blanning moved to Aspen during World War II with his mother and three brothers. They lived in the Hotel Jerome at first; he skied for Aspen High School, and graduated from that same school in 1954. He was handsome and a lady’s man; Blanning was fired from one job as a truck driver, because the truck was often found parked in alleys while he enjoyed dalliances. In all, he was married seven times, including twice to the same woman.
Early on, Blanning became fascinated with the town’s mining history — and tried to ratchet himself into a position of wealth. “He was always looking for the mother lode,” said Pitkin County Sheriff Bob Braudis, who had known him since the 1960s. “But he was always scraping for a grubstake.”
Sheriff Braudis, who was considered a friend by Blanning, said Blanning would “rather hustle a dime than earn a thousand dollars.”
While still a youngster, Blanning started hanging around the old miners gathered at the Jerome to learn about local mining claims. Even as a teenager he conducted meticulous research on ownership.
“I don’t know anybody who knew as much about mining claims as Jim Blanning,” said Gaard Moses, a friend of Blanning’s for almost 40 years. “He would educate lawyers on the 1872 mining law.”
City officials put Blanning’s knowledge about Aspen Mountain to use in 1983, a particularly wet year. The officials were concerned about the potential for mudslides into the town’s business district.
“Jim has always been an eccentric fellow, but he wasn’t mad in those days,” said Bill Stirling, who was then the mayor.
BUT BLANNING’S INTEREST in mining claims eventually put him at odds with Pitkin County officials. In the 1960s and ’70s, Blanning started wheeling and dealing in abandoned claims — researching titles, looking for ownership loopholes, and buying up properties mired in back taxes. Blanning sold mining claims to his friends at reasonable prices — warning them that they might have to go to court to defend their title. His plan, apparently, was to give working locals a chance to profit in the conspicuously up-and-coming Aspen region.
But in the late 1980s and especially the 1990s, says The Aspen Times, the county government “more aggressively” examined development applications, and started thwarting Blanning’s development plans for the backside of Aspen Mountain.
Blanning responded with memorable antics. One time he threw a Colorado law book out the window of the county commissioners’ meeting room. Another time he climbed out onto the second-story roof of the courthouse, tied a rope around a fixture and his waist, and eluded law officers’ efforts to pull him in. Sheriff Braudis finally talked him down after several hours.
Most colorful of all, a nearly nude Blanning confronted county officials at a local bar one day after an official meeting, wearing a sock as a codpiece and taunting them.
Despite setbacks, Blanning’s schemes proliferated — until he was finally accused of illegal financial manipulations, convicted and sentenced to 16 years. The judge, who died recently, said he had no discretion about the length of the sentence. And because of his nude appearance before the county officials, Blanning was sentenced to prison with sexual offenders.
“For the first two years I was in prison, I woke up every day wishing I was dead,” Blanning wrote in his suicide note.
Released to a halfway house in metropolitan Denver, Blanning spent the rest of his life still scheming and dreaming — but also deeply embittered and perhaps changed by antidepressants. “Both professionally and personally, I have seen incredible mood swings from a pill, and it can cause suicidal and homicidal effects,” said Braudis.
According to the Aspen Times,old-timers who knew Blanning saw him as disillusioned over the changes the town experienced and angry that he couldn’t cash in on the soaring real estate prices.
STILL, THOSE FRIENDS and acquaintances were shocked when they learned of Blanning’s final day. He had created four gasoline bombs, and deposited two of them in banks, then two in an alley. He also wrote notes, one to the Aspen Times, saying Bob might help people “understand it all.” Another letter to bank employees demanded $60,000 and threatened “mass death.”
None of the bombs went off, but hotels and other buildings were evacuated, and the usual New Year’s Eve merriment was halted.
Many of Blanning’s friends still believe that he never would have actually gone through with his plans and hurt anyone. But others are not so sure.
“He intended to cause death and destruction, which is totally out of character,” Braudis said after reviewing the suicide notes. “It sounds like he was apologizing for the mass murder that he intended here”
“Could have done some serious damage,” Blanning said in one of his notes. “Oh, well. Too tired. To the bone.”
He took a pistol to himself at a nature preserve three miles east of Aspen. He was 72.
“I saw the good in him, and I saw the insanity in him,” Braudis said.
Allen Best covers the Rocky Mountains from Arvada when he’s not on the road.
