Stratton’s Town: Independence, Colorado

c 2023 by Jan MacKell Collins

Portions of this article are excerpted from Lost Ghost Towns of Teller County

Of all of the Cripple Creek District’s historic cities, Independence stands out as one of the most interesting. Named for the Independence Mine staked by Winfield Scott Stratton in 1891, the city spilled down the hillside of Montgomery Gulch in what is now known as the Vindicator Valley. Stratton eventually relocated to a more upscale and modest house in Colorado Springs, but his former home at Independence remained well known.

Independence was platted on November 11, 1894. Nearby was the Hull City Mine, a big producer throughout the early 1900’s. Upwards of eleven streets made up the fledgling town, surrounded on all sides by such mines as the Vindicator, the Teresa, the Portland #1 and #2, the Findley and of course, the Independence.

In time, the Midland Terminal Railroad tracks would divide Independence from Goldfield, located across Montgomery Gulch. Founded in 1895, Goldfield eventually became a suburb of Victor. In turn, Independence sort of became a suburb of Goldfield when the two towns grew to meet each other in the gulch.

Perhaps because there was already another town named Independence, located along the pass of the same name near Aspen, the post office was called Macon when it first opened in February of 1895. Part of the reason for opening the post office was because the one at Altman, above Independence, was being revisited by the postmaster general to make sure there were enough residents up there merited having mail service. Altman eventually got their post office back, and the Macon post office continued service to Independence.

By 1896, the population at Independence was around 500. Businesses included an assayer and jeweler to service the rich mines surrounding the camp. One boarding house and two hotels sheltered miners. There was also a drugstore, grocery, two meat markets, a milliner, a cobbler, a photographer, one physician, one restaurant and two saloons. A lumber mill and a general contractor serviced mines, merchants and homesteaders alike. The Midland train dropped passengers off at First and Montgomery. A harness maker and hay and feed store served the equine population.

Over the next few years, Independence grew fast. In 1899, the Macon postmaster succeeded in renaming the post office to Independence. In spite of having a population of 1,500 by 1900, Independence was never able to form its own town council or elect a mayor. The town was instead governed by Goldfield. The decision to do this is puzzling, as services at Independence included telephone and telegraph service, and an inventory of the business district also included a number of stores, nine boarding houses, two hotels and two churches. The school was run by Mrs. S.L. Leazer. Three doctors and a dentist had put up their shingles. There were also now eight saloons. Numerous productive mines continued to surround the town, including the Vindicator, the Delmonico and the Atlanta.

Not all of the citizens of Independence liked the arrangement with Goldfield. In late 1900, the Independence Mining & Townsite Company purchased a large plot of land and started advertising the new town with vigor. “In twelve months, it will be the commercial center of the great Cripple Creek District,” the town fathers declared. Despite their intentions, however, the men failed in their mission and Independence remained under Goldfield’s shadow. Still, the town was not without some memorable residents. Among them was the “Queen of Independence.” The unidentified young lady was the toast of the town according to the late Rufus Porter, a.k.a. the “Hard Rock Poet,” who actually lived in Goldfield. Porter recalled the “Queen’s” story of watching two gamblers sitting on a wooden sidewalk, each with a stack of gold pieces. The men were spitting at a crack between the boards on $20 bets.

Business at Independence continued to boom. As of 1901, the Volunteer Fire Department had upwards of twenty members. Hull’s Camp, at the northwest section of town, was becoming part of the city. Business houses of every kind still ran through the downtown area. Among them was Mrs. Mamie Crooks’ Hotel Montgomery, advertised “A nice home for miners. Good board and clean rooms at reasonable rates.”

Independence made national news in 1903, when professional assassin Harry Orchard set off a bomb in the Vindicator Mine above town during the famed Cripple Creek District labor strikes. Orchards’ targets—an elevator full of scabs working for non-union mine owners—escaped unharmed but superintendent Charles H. McCormick and shift boss Malverne Beck died instead. Next, in June of 1904, Orchard bombed the Florence & Cripple Creek train depot in the downtown area. There were twenty seven miners standing on the platform when the bomb went off. Thirteen were killed instantly when “their dismembered bodies were blown 150 feet up the hillside.” Orchard’s actions were on behalf of the Western Federation of Miners who were striking against unfair mine owners, but his deeds were so dastardly that they played a big part in the mine owners winning the strike.

The strikes also had an unfavorable affect on Independence. By 1905 many businesses had closed and the population hovered around a thousand people. At least some money was still flying around, as evidenced by the robbery of the Silver Bell Saloon in Independence on a February night in 1906.

It was widely known that the Silver Bell was happy to cash miners’ paychecks, so a bit of money had to be on hand at all times. At 10 p.m. on February 11, Eddie Foy, “Two-Gun Wild Bill” Gleason, Frank Edmunston, Jimmie Welsh, Frank Drake, deputy marshals Hardy Potts and Cal Webster, and several other men were in the bar when two masked robbers walked in and ordered everyone to put their hands up. Drake headed for a room in the back but was shot by one of the robbers, Harry Harris. Deputies Potts and Webster, along with Gleason, returned shots. More gunfire broke out. When it was all over the second bandit, Fred Powell, was dead. So was Drake. Harris absconded with $1,800 in cash. It is unknown whether he was ever caught.

Independence’s population in 1907 was around 1,200 and a handful of business remained open. But as the mining opportunities around the Cripple Creek District downsized, so did the towns within the district. By 1912 only one assayer, one dry goods, one hotel, and one saloon were still in business at Independence. Those needing medical attention had to go to Dr. L.D. Louis in Altman. Fifteen mines continued to provide limited employment. By 1919 there were only 500 people left in town. Some of them, including Leslie Carlton and W.E. Ryan, were superintendents of area mines. Only a hardware store and two cigar stores were left.

Independence was given a brief reprieve in 1921 when Les Carlton’s brother, millionaire A.E. Carlton, purchased the old Vindicator Mine and tried to work it. Unfortunately the mine was plagued by water for years. After Carlton’s death his wife, the former Ethel Frizzell, successfully built the Carlton Tunnel to release the water from the Vindicator and other area mines. Twenty five thousand gallons per minute gushed from the tunnel, and the Vindicator successfully operated for nearly four more decades.

As the old mines around Independence continued being worked, a few families continued living in town. As late as 1939, Mr. and Mrs. Alfred H. Bebee were mentioned in the Cripple Creek Times Record as hosts of an evening get together at Independence (notably, the Bebee house still stands, and was never a brothel per the graffiti scribbled on some of the walls.) Others who lived there in the 1950’s included a man named Skinny Ward and the family of former Victor mayor Kathy Justice. Justice remembered her brothers finding sticks of dynamite at the Hull City Mine. “They brought it into town and sold it to the police chief for two cents a stick, and then we would buy candy at Harshie’s [now the Fortune Club in Victor] with the money,” she said.

   Not until 1954 did Independence’s post office close. The Hull City Mine closed in 1958, and the Vindicator closed for a final time in 1959. The last of Independence’s early residents moved away, although a couple of homes were occupied as late as 1982. Almost the entire town was engulfed by modern mining efforts in 2004, although some structures at the very east end of town were preserved. The Hull City Placer was moved and a hiking trail was installed. Today visitors can walk the trail and read interpretive signage about Independence and its surrounding mines.

Image: The Beebe House in Independence as it appeared in 2004. Copyright Jan MacKell Collins.

A match made in luxury: Cripple Creek’s Winfield Scott Stratton and Denver’s Brown Palace Hotel

c 2014 by Jan MacKell Collins

According to one legend, Winfield Scott Stratton, the first and most famous millionaire of the Cripple Creek District, traveled to Denver during a particularly nasty storm in the spring of 1900. Upon stumbling into the prestigious Brown Palace Hotel, Stratton was ordered by an imperious employee to remove himself and his muddy boots from the lobby. The temperamental tycoon retaliated by purchasing the hotel outright so he could fire the employee.

A more scathing story was that Brown Palace manager Maxey Tabor, son of former silver king H.A.W. Tabor, disapproved of a young vaudeville actress Stratton was courting while both were guests at the hotel. In fact, Tabor went so far as to suggest to the lady that she should leave the hotel, never to return. For that reason and no other, according to the Telluride Daily Journal, Stratton purchased the Brown to exact revenge, “and now they do say that Manager Tabor will be out of a job just as soon as the new owner moves into the second floor front suite.”

The third, more genteel story, is most likely a combination of the Tabor story and the truth: Stratton was in fact saving the Brown from foreclosure when he purchased the mortgage in 1900. The grand hotel had opened some years before, specifically built to cater to the rich, political and powerful men and women of the time. Carpenter and architect Henry C. Brown financed the project, naming the hotel for himself. As early as October 1, 1891, the Leadville Herald Democrat noted the hotel was under construction, but was already receiving guests on a limited basis.

The Brown Palace officially opened in 1892 and immediately became a prominent meeting spot for political conventions and important organizations of the time. Denver’s most elite hotel was constructed of Colorado red granite and Arizona sandstone outside, with decorative iron and Mexican onyx inside to create a sturdy structure that could stand for decades. Nine floors offered luxurious suites, ballrooms, meeting and banquet rooms, private clubrooms, restaurants and an expansive lobby that was visible via a wrap-around balcony extending to the eighth floor. High above, a 2,800 square-foot stained glass ceiling provided natural lighting.

There is little doubt that Stratton favored staying at the Brown for a number of reasons. Being a former carpenter himself, the mining magnate likely appreciated Henry Brown’s humble beginnings and admired architect Frank Edbrooke’s Italian Renaissance design of the hotel. Here, Stratton could easily find and meet with politicians, mine owners and other influential figures to discuss the state of affairs regarding gold mining and the future of America.

The Brown Palace also offered a safe retreat from the money-grubbing men and women of the Cripple Creek District and Colorado Springs who constantly vied for Stratton’s money and attentions. Upon staking the Independence gold mine at Cripple Creek on July 4, 1891, Stratton had literally become a millionaire overnight. Almost immediately a gaggle of newfound “friends”, gold-digging harlots and illegitimate heirs came forth, all wanting a piece of Stratton and his new fat wallet. Whether killing him with kindness or clamoring for his cash, Stratton’s fan club only served to embitter the man further and drove him to drink.

Stratton is known to have taken refuge at the Brown as early as 1896, when he joined others at a meeting to fight against silver coinage. W.H. Bush, manager of the hotel at the time, was also a mining investor and favored such meetings. Here, Stratton found colleagues whose best interests lay with the future of mining, not his own pocketbook. From his upstairs suite, he could relax in privacy, imbibe freely in his alcohol and recover from his hangovers via the hotel’s wonderfully refreshing artesian well, located some 750 feet underground. Fountains from the well once graced every floor.

Most unfortunately, running a place as swell as the Brown Palace came at a cost. The hotel happened to open just before the Silver Panic of 1893, which sent the nation into a devastating depression. By 1900 Henry Brown was struggling to make ends meet. Stratton, who had already earned kudos for extending money to friends, supplying Cripple Creek with needed goods following two devastating fires in 1896, and even assisting former millionaire widow Baby Doe Tabor with her Matchless Mine at Leadville, came to the rescue. In April of 1900, newspapers announced that Stratton had purchased the Brown Palace Hotel for a cool $1.5 million, regarded as an extremely good price even for the time.

Alas, Stratton may have saved the Brown Palace Hotel, but he could not save himself. On September 14, 1902, he died at his home in Colorado Springs. At the young age of 54, Cripple Creek’s favorite millionaire quite literally drank himself to death. The Brown Palace remained under Stratton’s estate for the next twenty years. It was then purchased by another key player in Cripple Creek history, the same Horace Bennett who platted the city, made a million dollars from lot sales, and for whom Bennett Avenue is named.

Bennett’s partner in 1922 was hardware magnate and philanthropist Charles Boettcher. The latter was already a part time resident of the hotel, which remained in the family until 1980. During the time in between those years, the Brown Palace has played host to no less than three presidents plus several dignitaries, governors, celebrities and others who have contributed to its enduring and endearing history. A favorite story: the time Zsa Zsa Gabor’s pampered puppy got lost in the heating ducts. The Queen of Slap was forced by other engagements to move on while hotel workers toiled to extract the dog and personally flew him to be reunited with Gabor.

Today, a stay at the Brown Palace Hotel continues to reflect everything Brown, Stratton, Boettcher and subsequent owners expected in a five-star, four-diamond hotel. Care of the 120 year-old structure is a great undertaking, but visitors can still relax with such amenities as Victorian rooms with modern comforts, historic décor including artifacts dating as far back as 1763, a polite and friendly staff, moderately-priced to upscale fine dining, and of course that excellent artesian water that now flows from every faucet. The four o’clock tea is an especial favorite among the ladies. For looky-lou’s, beware: the prestigious Brown does not allow anyone above the second floor to ensure the privacy of their guests.

Count Pourtales Takes A Swim

The Green Mountain Falls and the town’s charming lake are pictured here, circa 1889.

c 2014 by Jan MacKell Collins

The year was 1884 when Count James M. Pourtales first arrived in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Of European royalty, Pourtales was on the lookout for investments to save his interests in Germany and Prussia. He was also looking to spend more time with his beautiful cousin, Countess Berthe de Pourtales, whom he later married. Perhaps as a means of staying nearer to Berthe, Pourtales invested in the failing Broadmoor Dairy Farm, located on the southwest end of town, in about 1885.

Pourtales balanced his time in Colorado Springs with frequent visits to his homeland in Prussia. He soon discovered, however, that his departures generally resulted in doom for his investments. Pourtales soon learned to bloom where he was planted. Upon reviving the dairy farm, he next began purchasing more land. In the spring of 1889 he purchased a few hundred acres in what is now the five star Broadmoor neighborhood for development as a resort and casino.

In his free time, Pourtales courted his beloved Berthe and took short excursions around the growing Pike’s Peak region. One of his trips included a visit to Green Mountain Falls in May of 1889. As one of many resort towns of Ute Pass, Green Mountain Falls offered expansive picnic areas, a pretty little lake and namesake falls which cascaded gently down a local rock formation. Whether by accident or design, the Count happened to be present for the grand opening of the Green Mountain Falls Hotel. The new hotel was one of a number of pleasure resorts along Ute Pass designed to attract travelers from the east.

The hotel was a grand three story structure, built by W.G. Riddock very near the picturesque lake. Locals predicted the place would soon rival the Ramona Hotel in Cascade, located just down the road. The Green Mountain Falls Hotel offered 70 spacious guest rooms and comforting surroundings. Like the Ramona, the Green Mountain Falls Hotel also sported scenic gable rooms on each side and verandas running the length of each floor.

The grand opening was an event to be remembered, with hundreds of people attending the festivities around the hotel. Count Pourtales was amongst them, and at one point took a stroll down to the lake. There, he watched as Mr. F. E. Dow, president of Green Mountain Falls Town & Improvement Company, paddled leisurely on the water with his wife, their child and one Mrs. Clark. Suddenly the boat capsized, sending the occupants splashing into the water. As Mr. Dow attempted to save his family and Mrs. Clark, a man swam to their rescue. The hero was none other than Count Pourtales. Some say the lake is no more than a few feet deep in the middle, but the Count no doubt enjoyed his notoriety for saving the day.

Count Pourtales’ fame did not end with swimming to the rescue of Mr. Dow and his family. In 1891 the Count visited the Cripple Creek District, located just over Pikes Peak from Green Mountain Falls. The Count quickly made friends with such influential people as Sam Strong, Emma Carr, Bob Womack and Winfield Scott Stratton, all of whom contributed to the success of the District’s gold mining. When Pourtales and his partner invested $80,000 in the Buena Vista claim, their purchase made the papers and enhanced the gold rush to Cripple Creek.

In spite of his fame and notoriety, Pourtales’ investments continued to falter on occasion. In 1893 he defaulted on a $250,000 loan and lost his investment in the Broadmoor, destined to become a top star, classy destination for the millionaires of the future. Ironically, the loan company later sold the land to the estate of Winfield Scott Stratton, the Cripple Creek District’s first millionaire who averaged $12,000 a day in mining profits and died in 1902. The land was used for the Myron Stratton Home, Stratton’s own orphanage and home for the aged that is still in operation today. By the time the Myron Stratton Home was built, Pourtales had returned to his native land, where he died in 1908. His departure from the Pikes Peak region was surely final, but a good many people remembered him for years to come.