Jim Markalunas, Aspen’s Water and Power Pillar, Dies at 95

The wind off Red Mountain doesn’t care about your legacy. It just blows. But inside the West End neighborhood, the silence feels heavier this week. Neighbors are looking at the old house on Hallam Street, remembering a man who kept the lights on when the rest of the valley froze.

Jim Markalunas died on February 15, 2026. He was 95.

He didn’t just live in Aspen. He helped build the infrastructure that let Aspen grow from a mining camp into a resort town. He ran the hydro-electric powerhouses. He managed the water. He kept the lights on.

Markalunas wasn’t some distant official reading from a press release. He was the guy who fired up the Castle Creek powerhouse when a Labor Day snowstorm knocked out power for three days. The meat locker at Beck and Bishop was thawing. The mayor needed juice. Markalunas got it. He kept the town from freezing in the dark.

That’s the kind of utility locals need. Not a photo op. Power.

His family came over Independence Pass in 1881. His great-grandfather John Warkentine surveyed the Smuggler Mine. His father played minor league baseball for the Pittsburgh Pirates. His uncle Duke hosted radio concerts at the Isis Theatre during the war. Jim was born into this. He graduated Aspen High in 1949. Just seven boys in his class.

He served in the Marines. The "Flying Nightmares." Aviation electronics on Corsair aircraft in Korea. He came home. He married Ramona in 1953. They stayed married for 59 years until she died in 2012. They built their home in the West End in 1956. They raised four kids there.

He worked the powerhouses. The one that became the old Art Museum. The one under the Castle Creek Bridge. He knew every wire. Every valve.

He also knew how to have fun. He delivered telegrams to the Hotel Jerome in the 1940s. He rode locomotives through the railyards. He floated watermelons down the flumes. He fished with Gary Cooper on Hunter Creek. He and friend John Callahan hiked from Aspen to Vail in 1967. Before that was easy. Before that was a chore.

He designed a home on Wilson Mesa outside Telluride. Fritz Benedict did the architecture. Markalunas installed the water system. Remote homes needed water. He made sure they got it.

He wrote a book. "Aspen Memories." It’s full of stories. The kind you can’t get from a plaque on a wall.

The short version: Markalunas was a pillar. Not because he said so. Because the town ran because he was there.

He served as Water Department Head from the 1960s until retirement in 1990. That’s decades. Three decades of overseeing the water that fills our taps, our pools, our reservoirs.

Look at the current water debates. Look at the drought projections. Look at the infrastructure aging under our feet. Markalunas didn’t just manage water. He understood it. He lived it. He fixed it when it broke.

Now the West End is quieter. The powerhouses are still there. The water still flows. But the man who knew every bolt and every breaker is gone.

Read that again. He kept the town from freezing in the dark. That’s not a headline. That’s a fact.

Neighbors will remember the telegrams. The baseball stories. The hikes. But they’ll also remember the lights staying on.

The obituary says he passed peacefully at home. It doesn’t mention the cost of replacing his institutional knowledge. It doesn’t mention who’s watching the water now.

It’s worth watching.