Wayne Norviel Aspinall was born on April 3, 1896, in Middlesburg, Ohio. Aspinall’s family moved to Palisade, Colorado in 1904 to start an orchard along the Colorado River. He attended Mount Lincoln public school in Palisade and graduated from the University of Denver law school in 1925. Aspinall then taught high school from 1925 to 1933. In 1930 he was elected as a representative in the Colorado General Assembly and served as speaker in 1937-1938. Afterwards he served in the Colorado State Senate from 1939 to-1948. During his time in the Colorado legislature, Aspinall began to hone his knowledge of Colorado’s water issues as a member of the Colorado Water Conservation Board. The ongoing debates on individual state’s water rights helped formulate his ideas of state cooperation regarding water rights. He also participated in numerous reclamation projects and consultations. During WWII, he served as a captain and spent most of 1944 participating in the assembly of the civilian governments of western Europe. After returning from the war, Aspinall sought a return to political life. Though he planned to run for governor of Colorado, the Democratic party tapped Aspinall for Colorado’s 4th district in the U.S. House of Representatives. He would go on to serve Colorado in the U.S. House for the next 24 years. Over the course of Aspinall’s congressional career, he served as the chairman of the Committee of Interior and Insular Affairs and was influential at a crucial time for water and land policy in the United States. Aspinall advocated for a smart allocation of the nation's natural resources and believed that they should be used for industrial growth and urban development. Throughout his career, he played a significant role in shaping the Colorado River Storage Act of 1956 and the Frying Pan Arkansas Project of 1962, that aimed to send water to the Front Range, against his constituents’ wishes. With the Wilderness Act of 1964 Aspinall advocated for mining rights lasting until the 1980s, while the Colorado River Basin Act of 1968 sought the construction of five dams that would feed water and income to the lower basin. The latter act prompted attacks from environmentalist groups that criticized the flooding of portions of the Grand Canyon National Monument and Park. Of the five proposed dams, two were built and were the last major projects of Aspinall’s congressional career. After being voted out of office in 1972, Aspinall made sure to stay busy. He still held sway in the western half of the state and used his connections made in Congress to lobby for local natural resource groups such as Club 20 and AMAX. He crossed party lines in 1976 to show his support for Gerald Ford. Aspinall hosted an event for Ford in 1974 at Lincoln Park Baseball Field. Wayne Aspinall received many honors in his retirement. In 1977, a bronze bust of Aspinall was permanently installed in the State Capitol Building in Denver, as well as a memorial in his hometown of Palisade. Aspinall continued to travel and speak on behalf of natural resource allocation, and he briefly taught political science at the University of Wyoming in 1975-1976. He was a constant presence in the Western Slope until his death on October 9th, 1983.

Vivian Passer worked as Wayne Aspinall’s secretary throughout the 1970s until his death in 1983. She was instrumental in coordinating recognition events for Aspinall after he left congress in 1973, including the bronze bust at the Colorado state capitol building, the flag raising ceremony at Grand Junction High School in Aspinall’s honor, and a full front-page spread in the Daily Sentinel for Wayne Aspinall’s 80th Birthday. She attended Mesa State College in the mid-1970s and authored a social and gossip column in the Daily Sentinel from 1978 to 1984.