The town flourished with some four hundred residents until 1887 as both a mining camp and stage-stop on the road between Aspen and Leadville. But when the D. & R. G. and the Colorado Midland railroads arrived in Aspen, people started to move away. In 1888 Independence had a population of one hundred. The remaining residents first changed the name to Mammoth City, then Mount Hope, and then in 1897-’99, during a revival of the mine and mill, back to Chipeta.
After 1900 there was only one resident—the caretaker of the mill, Jack Williams, who called his home, Independence. In 1912 Williams departed, and so died Belden-Independence-Chipeta-Sidney-Farwell-Sparkhill-Mammoth City-Mount Hope-Chipeta-Independence—a town unique in nomenclature....
Before sightseeing around Leadville the visitor should read The Unsinkable Mrs. Brown, Silver Queen, Augusta Tabor and the Matchless Mine and Lusty Leadville. No mining camp in Colorado can equal Leadville for the drama of its history, and it is impossible to catch the region’s unique flavor without some preparation beforehand.
There are a number of ghost towns in the environs. The most historic is Oro City in California Gulch, but we have chosen Stumptown because of its association with “The Unsinkable Molly Brown,” a musical comedy. To the south are Ball Mountain and fabulous Breece Hill where J. J. Brown was an eighth owner of the Little Jonny.
INDEPENDENCE LIES BESIDE THE HIGHWAY
This, the easiest ghost town to see, is viewable from a parked car and presents a host of interesting shots for the artistic photographer.
Franz Berko, 1957
The Little Jonny was probably Leadville’s richest mine. Properties such as the Robert E. Lee made more fantastic shipments—during a seventeen-hour stretch in January, 1880, some $118,500 was extracted—and others such as the Tabors’ Matchless have had more publicity. But the Little Jonny was rare in being both a gold and silver mine in a predominantly silver camp.
Its principal owner was John F. Campion (“Leadville Johnny”) who employed Jim Brown as a superintendent until Brown was clever enough to find a gold belt in the workings of the mine. This was just at the time that the price of silver was falling and the Panic of 1893 was casting a pall on the silver camps. In return for this stroke of luck the grateful owners cut Brown in for an eighth share of the mine.
Jim Brown had married Maggie Tobin, an illiterate Irish waitress, in 1886. In order to be close to the mines that he was managing at the time, he had taken her to live in Stumptown.