HAPPENINGS ALONGTHE T\\rn LAKES AND ROARING FORK

TOLL-ROAD

DON L. GRISWOLD

Speaker of the ~onth

Don L. Griswold is another nativeC!f Colorado) banI in Olney Springs)In the Arkansas Valley. Re is a gradu­ate of Denver University and holdsa Master's degree in Education fromColumbia University. While teachingin the Leadville public schools) hemet Jean Ramey) now Mrs. Griswold)he1"Self a member of one of Leadville's(and Colorado's) oldest and mostprominent families. They were drawntogether by a common interest whichhas continued throughout their mar­ried life.

Don insists that this toll-road StOTYas well as the rest of their publishedworks),is due just as much to Jean's

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research ability and enthusiasm as tohis efforts. They jointly authOTed"The Carbonate Camp Called Lead­ville" (1951) and "A Century of Colo­rado Cities" (1958). Don claims thelatter as the first of the heavy crop ofCentennial publications.

Since 1941) Don has been in Denverteaching in the public schools) exceptfor four years spent in Air Force In­telligence in Europe from 1941 to1945. In the summers) however) theG1-iswolds may be found at their sum­mer home in Twin Lakes.

Silver mine-gold mine, locate oneand you will be rich! 'Where? Lead­ville was the answer in 1878, but by1879 the silver seekers reaching- thiss·ection of the Colorado Rockies foundthat every piece of desirable and muchundesirable ground had already beenstaked. Then came reports of silverand gold strikes in the Gunnison andRoaring Fork regions. How did youget to these new finds? You had tocross the Continental Divide. Therewere several low places~that is, lowerthan the to,wering peaks of the Sa­watch Range-but all were difficult.

Some prospectors headed west fromSouth Arkansas or Buena Vista; somecrossed Tennessee Pass, north of Lead­ville; and others crossed Hunters Pass,southwest of Leadville. On the 4th ofJuly, 1879, a rich gold strike was madeabout five miles west of the summitof this last mentioned pass, and be­cause of the date, the fortunate min­ers called their mine the Independ-

ence. They also christened the camp,the mountain and the pass with thesame name. Farther down the Roar­ing Fork River promising silver loca­tions were made and Ute City wasproudly planned in that same year.But how did you reach Hunters orIndependenGe Pass, and where werethese new Eldorados which couldmake you a millionaire if you werelucky? The intrepid soon found theway, spearheading the rush to Aspen.

One recorded trip across Independ­ence Pass told of a party of s,ix men"well armed and equipped" with rid­ing horses and a dozen burros "loadedwith the necessaries of life, being most­ly flour, sugar and bacon." Thesemen left Leadville one morningin late November of 1879 and pro­ceeded down the Arkansas Valley toLake Creek and then west six milesto the village of Twin Lakes, an oldtownsite and county seat called Day­ton in the 1860's, but in '79 freshlylaid out north and south, east andwest and renamed Twin Lakes. Onthe second day the prospecting partyfollowed the Lake Creek road as faras it went and then took to- the nar­row, rough mountain trail, which ledtJhem up the steep mountainside toMountain Boy Park where the mencamped out in the open, laying theirblankets on a two-foot depth of snow.On the third day, the day which "triedtheir very ·souls," they struggledthrough snow ,to the top of the pass,and as they descended, one of theburros made a misstep and rolleddown a hundred-foot bank of snow.After using several hours in freeingthe burro, they reached the camp ofIndependence and stayed there for thenight. Ute City was reached on thefourth day with not too much diffi­culty.

There seem to be no records whichtell of any other crossings of Inde­pendence Pass after the above until

January 17, 1880, when Fred G. Mc­Candless decided things were prettydull in Ute City, and so chose to visithis old friends in Leadville. Accord­ing to his report, it took him five daysto make the crossing, the first threebeing spent in fighting the elementsfor the eighteen miles from Ute Cityto Independence. "Heavy, wet snowshad ladened the u-ees in the canonand soaked them full of water. Coldweather had frozen them solid andstrong winds cracked them off theirstumps like so many matches. Thiscaused the narrow gulch to be com­pletely filled with dense brush or athicket of snow-laden branches." Af­ter nearly starving and freezing todeath in the canyon, he "crawled upto the door of a cabin in Independ­ence camp" and "was warmly wel­comed and tenderly cared for." Onthe fourth day, remarkably revived, hescaled the top of the pass, and beingan expert skier, made the descent inseven minutes, which according to hiscalculations was a speed of "over amile in two minutes." Because hewas unable to s-1ow his descent, healmost hit a tree, and as a result wasso frightened that he walked the restof the way to Twin Lakes; but aftera night's rest in a hotel there, he madethe trip from the Lakes to Leadvillein a record two hours.

Although the reports of crossing thedivide were usually thrilling, hair-rais­ing episodes, the riches of the RoaringFork area were said to be even bigger,better and more fabulous. than thoseof Leadville. The business, men ofLeadville and of Buena Vista, realiz­ing that a road into the Roaring Forkdistrict "would bring thousands ofdollars in trade·· be<Tan pushing sucha project. The merchants and citi­zens of Buena "\ i ta not only talked,but actually tarted work on the Cot­tonwood pi road before the winterhalted their labor-. orne rumors in-

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<licated Denver interests were hdping:in the construction of this road, andin answer to these rumors the Carbon­ate Camp's business men declaredthrough the columns of the Chronicle,"Leadville can well compete withDenver, and in the matter of miningoutfits greatly surpass her, and it ishoped the opportunity will not be al­lowed to pass."

On March 27, 1880, the Leadvilleboosters of a toll-road to the WesternSlope called a public hearing in Tur­ner Hall. At this meeting, the FryingPan and Roaring Fork, the EagleRiver and Gunnison, the Twin Lakesand Roaring Fork, and the GrandRiver, Leadville and Roaring Forktoll-road companies presented theirplans to an enthusiastic group. Eachcompany claimed a charter and abilityto build a good road with a minimumof expense as soon as the necessarycapital was raised. However, sincemuch of the area was still held by theIndians and white settlements werenon-existent or mere prospectingcamps, no decision was reached atthis March meeting as to which toIl­road or roads should be supported.The whole matter of how to reach the,I\TesteJ-n Slope, and specifically theRoaring Fork region, was more or lessat a stand still until J. E. Rice, re­spected Leadville physician, and J. S.D. Manville, prominent hardwaredealer, began to promote the TwinLakes and Roaring Fork Company.The projected route of this companywas from Leadville to Twin Lakes,"thence to the foot of the range, tenmiles distance, thence over Indepen­dence five miles, thence down CastleCreek to the junction with the Roar­ing Fork River, twenty-four miles, andon fifteen miles farther to the IndianReservation." The capital stock ofthe company was set at $100,000 andthe company officials made the follow­ing proposition to Leadville officials:

It will s.ell $40,000 of its stock atforty cents on the dollar and agree tocomplete the road from Dayton(Twin Lakes) to the Roaring Fork insixty days from the date of the receiptof the money, and have a trail suit­able for pack animals in twenty days.Or, the company will build the roadto Independence Gulch within ninetydays, and complete a pack trail to thetown of Roaring Fork (a rival campof early Aspen) in fifteen days, or for­feit its charter and franchise, if thecitizens of Leadville will build theremaining portion to the town ofRoaring in 60 days, receiving fromthe Company $40,000 of the capitalstock.

No definite agreement was reached,but enough money was raised for astart on the toll-road that spring. TheTwin Lakes and Roaring Fork Com­pany did the best it could under thecircumstances by having a crew ofwokmen shovel the snow oH' the oldroad so teams could haul wagons a dis­tance of twelve miles beyond TwinLakes, and from that point the trailwas shoveled for about five miles far­ther. Beyond that the crossing of theactual pass remained "perilous."

By May about thirty people per daywere going over the route and a tollof 25 cents apiece for saddle horses,mules and burros was being collectedat the Twin Lakes toll-gate about ahalf mile from the village. June foundthe stampede to the new silver campof Aspen to be in full force, but dis­couraging reports on the condition ofIndependence Pass continued to comein. J. W. Iron and R. D. Wagnerwrote:

For five miles the Pass is full ofsnow . . . beyond that the ground iseither boggy aNd sloppy, full of roughboulders, or characterized by a gen­eral rough surface that renders itpractically impossible to man andbeast. . . . On the range the snow isvery deep yet, and where the sno,w has

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melted there is no way of avoidingthe mud, which in places is up toone's knees....

And in a lighter vein Hamilton S.Wicks wrote:

Judge S. J. Hanna and myself leftLeadville last Wednesday morning,May 26, expecting to enjoy a littlepic-nic excursion to Roaring Fork.We pictured to ourselves a pleasantlittle canter over the Twin Lakes TollRoad, amidst picturesque beautiesof the Continental Divide. Oh! witch­ing scenes of foul delusion! Owingundoubtedly, to the particular tender­ness of our feet, our imagination wasallowed to get the better of our judg­ments. I do not wish to, or shall Isay aught against the Toll Road Com­pany, for I believe they have dis­played commendable zeal in hewingout a pathway among the rocks andtimber from a point northeast ofTwin Lakes to a point about threemiles west of Seaton's ranch com­prising in all perhaps twenty miles;but I want to say a word to my friendthe taughfoot, who, out of abundanceof his experience, actually believesa trip of fifty to sixty miles over themountains a very simple and easymatter to accomplish. Do not here­after speak so glibly about the rapid­ity with which you accomplish thetrip from Leadville to. Roaring Forkand return. In your easy flowing con­versation don't level whole moun­tains, and fill up vast chasms of mud;for your simple-minded tenderfootbelieves all you say, and when hefinds those mountains, and that mudto be toiled over and wallowedthrough he curses you with impre­cations loud and deep....

At the end of the letter Wickspointed out that the rush to theRoaring Fork district was a genuineone, proi>pectors going in "a hundredstrong every day" by the Twin Lakes,and the Eagle River trails, and proba­bly as large a number by the BuenaVista-Cottonwood wagon road, which

by that time had been completed towithin twenty miles of Aspen.

At about the same time that Hamil­ton Wicks and Judge Hanna arrivedin Aspen so did the first wagon tocome across Independence Pass. Itwould be better to write was broughtacross, since this "historic wagon" hadto be "taken to' pieces and packed up­on mules, hauled upon hand sleds,and, in fact, every means of transpor­tation known to genius used." Aftera stormy passage of one month thewagon was re-assembled and placed ondisplay on a public lot in Aspen.

The need for the completion of theroad across t;he pass was intensifiedin late June of 1880 when the excite­ment in and about the nearby boom­ing camp of Independence reached a"white heat" following rumors of dis­coveries in South IndependenceGulch, which would "surpass anythingbefore heard of in Colorado." DuringJuly of that year the Twin Lakes andRoaring Fork Toll-Road was clearedand widened as far as Seaton's ranch.Beyond Seaton's the road was lostin a trail whidl, though well-marked,was rough and usually marshy. Far­ther along the steepness and uncer­tainty of the ascent to the top of therange were testified to by "the scoreor more of dead animals' which hadmissed their footing and tumbled backinto, the valley below. Furthermore,many a traveler of this trail believedthe descent into Independence "sur­passed anything the wildest imagina­tion could conjure." The narrownessof the almost perpendicular pathwaythat leaned toward the gulch meantthat here again if a misstep were madeby man or beast, a fall, probably fatal,of one hundred or two hundred feetwould result. Having once reachedthe camp of Independence, some of thetreasure-seekers stayed in that camp soas to prospect the area; the others

continued on down the Roaring Fork

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River trail where for twenty miles thepath led "across more rocks andswamps than any other hundred milesof trail in the world." Another promi­nent feature of this route was the toll­bridge, many of which were said to belocated at intervals of every three orfour miles, and at each, every travelerpaid 25 cents, not only for himself, butalso for every pack animal which hemight have.

The wagon road was extended nofarther during that summer, nor wasthe trail improved in any way; so thedisparaging reports of the dangers andhardships in crossing the pass in­creased throughout the fall and brokeforth with even greater and lustiervigor in the spring, despite the factthat J. S. D. Manville had guaranteed,in early March of 1881, enough moneyto complete the road.

Perhaps inspired by the assurancesof Manville as well as by those of Dr.Rice, who had moved to Twin Lakesduring the winter so as to be close athand to supervise the renewal of theroad building as soon as weather per­mitted, a singular crossing of the passwas attempted.

Here is the story as written in theMarch IS, 1881, Leadville Chronicle:

The narrow, tortuous and snow­walled trail that traverses Indepen­dence Pass between this city and As­pen, has been heretofore consideredpassable only for jack trains and notfor vehicles of any sort. The majorpart in fact all of the road outsideof the city consists, of a very narrowtrench pressed down in the snow andwalled on either side to the height ofabout six feet by the frigid element.This has been kept open during thewinter by occasional travel, whichhas gwwn considerably brisker asspring advances.

Sometime since the proprietors ofwhat was known as ·the New Yorkbakery of this city, decided to removetheir establishment to Aspen, and for

a time the transportation of appara­tus, etc., amounted to a very seriousembarrassment. The largest and mostunwieldy of the apparatus was a hugesheet iron furnace that could not betaken apart, but was an absolute es­sential in the manufacture of the sa­vory pies, cakes and brown loavesof bread that so delight the heart ofthe patron. Perseverance accomp­lishes wonders and the bakerymenfinally decided to make a desperateattempt to transport their oven bymeans of the jack trail. Accordinglythey started with the big iron bo,x.Little difficulty was experienced be­tween here and Twin Lakes, as theroad is comparatively open. Beyond,however, the jack trail, with all itshorrors began in dead earnest. A sledwas here purchased, on which thefurnace was securely fastened, andthe party slowly started upon theworst half of the journey with halfa dozen jacks as motive power. Thetrail soon narrowed to such an ex­tent that the projecting sides of theoven "stuck," and it was found nec­essary to' excavate several feet at eachside to admit its progress. Occasion­ally a tree would be encountered, andof necessity chopped down. The jackswould then be unharnessed andhitched to' the log, which was by thismeans dragged out of the way. Atnight the weary bakers slept in theoven haunted in their dreams by thefaint aroma of pastry that, like thescent of the roses, hung around it. ..The morning daylight would findthem plodding their toilsome, butdetermined way.

Meantime an unexpected difficultyarose. The spring tide of travel hadalready set in, and several jack trainswere not long in following the baker'scaravan. They were not long in catch­ing up with it, either, and the awfulfact dawned upon them that theycould not pass it, but would haveto linger in the rear. This filled themwith sorrow and disgust, for they werein a hurry, and, like most travelersinto a new mining camp, imaginedif they didn't get there right away

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a,ll the land would be &taked o,ff, allthe trades overcrowded and all theprovisions eaten up. So it looked asthough three or four rainbows in alltheir varied hues, but principallyblue, had settled on the spot. Thenanother and another jack train camehurrying up, and stopping at the rearof their unfortunate predecessors, in­quired anxiously:

"What's up?"Slowly the answer came back the

enraged and suffering line:"A G- D- pie factory is blockad­

ing the roadl""Well, why don't you push the -­

-- thing off?" howled the impatientfrom the rear.

"Can't do it, it's too hell-fired bigl"was the answer wafted back on thechilling winter breeze.

Then all hands joined in a generalstream of profanity that brought ablush to the face of even the usuallyshameless jack as he shuddered underhis load. Then more jack trains cameup, and the same interrogatories andanswers were repeated, only it tooklonger for them to come down thelengthening line. So the matterstands at present. The oven isn't atAspen yet, and isn't liable to be be­fore late this week, and the packtrains still accumulate in the rear, un­til the road for nearly a mile is backwith shivering, swearing, howlingmen. Travel is delayed, mails arestopped, communication is cut short,and perdition is to pay generally allfor one oven.

Two days later, near the camp ofIndependence, the drivers of the packtrains became so clamorous to getaround the big oven that the owners"deemed it impracticable" to take theoven farther and decided to drag itto one side of the trail where it wasabandoned. Did the bakers ever re­turn to take their oven on into Aspen?Did someone else take it into Indepen­dence or into Aspen where it was usedin a bakery? Or was it buried foreverby the rocks and gravel dug from the

mountain side later that year by theworkmen building the road on to­wards Aspen? Those are the unan­swered questions in regard to thefinal disposition of the Big Oven. Atany rate the trail was cleared of thiscumbersome piece of man made im­pedimenta, but the obstacles placed inthe projected roadway by nature wereto continue to make traveling difficultfor several months longer before theirremoval was effected; so the protestsagainst the Twin Lakes and RoaringFork Toll-Road Company kept pour­ing in.

Finally in early June, Dr. Ricewrote a progress report to the editorof the Chronicle. He said seventy­five men divided into three gangs wereworking very hard and that the crewworking east out of Independencewould have the road to the foot of thepass opened in a few days. The othertwo groups were working from Aspentoward Independence and if every­thing went as planned the entire routewould be opened by the 15th of Julywith daily stages running betweenLeadville and Aspen. He probablyguessed more money might be neededfor he added," ... most freight nowcoming to Aspen has to be broughtover the Buena Vista route, which iseighty miles, and two ranges to cross,while from this point to Aspen is butfifty-two and but one range."

As the road work went on, moremoney than guaranteed by J. S. D.Manville was requested. In the re­quest the members of the company,which had been reorganized as theLeadville and Aspen Toll-Road Com­pany, stated at least $4,000 more wasurgently needed, and further assertedthat when the road was completed allthe ores of Aspen would be shipped toLeadville for treatment, and that allgoods consumed in Aspen would bepurchased from Leadvilel merchants;therefore, did it not seem reasonable

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to expect that such a small sum as.4,000 could be raised among thesmelting and mercantile business menwho would profit most by extendingtheir trade into the Roar.ing Forkcountry? "But," added the boosters ofthe toll-road, "no time should be lost.Denver and Buena Vista are makingherculean exertions to secure the tradeby way of Cottonwood."

The first to respond to the requestwere Charles Mater, Leadville's pio­neer merchant and Samuel McMillenof McMillen Bros. Grocery andMiner's Supply. Other merchants hes­itantly contributed small amounts; soalthough the work on the road didcontinue, the progress was much slow­er than had been predicted by Dr.Rice. Nonetheless, encouraged bythese rather limited prospects, Wall' &\IVitter, stage and livery keepers ryfLeadville, started a daily line to Inde­pendence .in late June of '81. At first,the coaches which were advertised asthe best in Colorado for comfort andsafety, only went to- the stage stop, firstknown as Gilmore's and later as Brom­ley, at the foot of the range. Twoother companies, Carson's Stage andExpress Line, and McDonald, McLain& Company, Dea.Jers in Hay, Grain &Feed, also announced they would op­erate stage lines on the route. In mid­July, Andrew J. White of the Lead­ville Chronicle journeyed to Aspenand had the following to write of histrip to the end of the stage road:

The measure of life is full whenyou have made a trip from Leadvilleto Aspen via Twin Lakes and Inde­pendence. Leaving Leadville with itswhirl of mixed business and pleasure,when you reach the lakes you havecome into an atmosphere ladenedwith holiday perfume and resonantwith picnic merriment....

From the lakes a good wagon roadleads along Lake Creek in a westerlycourse, and the ascent is easy. Fiveor six miles from the lakes the south

branch of Lake Creek directs yourcourse over the Red Mountain pass,and the same distance further on thenorth branch pours its ice cold watersfrom Lackawanna gulch into themain stream.

Gilmor's hotel, at the foot of therange on this side, is the end of thestage line, and is five miles from IN­DEPENDENCE, which is over on thewestern slope.

Gilmor's is- reached by :McDonald& McLain's line of coaches which iswell equipped with good horses andexperienced drivers, who give you asafe, pleasant trip. They leave reg­ularly from their office, corner ofThird and Harrison avenue, everymorning at 8:30, and you arrive atGilmor's at about 5 o'clock, the dis­tance being twenty-nine miles. Thetrip thus far has been exceedinglypleasant. ...

There is no regular conveyancefrom the end of the stage line, and ifyou have not taken the precautionto take along your horse, you may becompelled to walk....

The Farwell Consolidated MiningCompany of Independence, tiring ofwaiting for the road crew to finish thestretch across the pass to Gilmore's,and fearing heavy snows would comebefore the machinery for the FarwellMill could be brought in, hired "allthe people of Independence" to go towork on and complete that section ofthe road. As soon as the job wasaccomplished, J. C. (Kit) Carson be­gan running his coaches and wagonsfrom Leadville to Independence, serv­ing both the traveling public and theexpress trade. His rates were $1.00to Twin Lakes, $1.75 to Everett's and$3.50 to Independence.

August and early September of 1881proved to be stormy with rain, hailand sleet, making both the road andthe trail one long, continous quag­mire, and putting a halt to- the roadbuilding eight miles east of Aspen.These signs of an early winter made

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the residents of Aspen apprehensivethat their promising camp would beshut off from the rest of the worldby snow and by mountain rangesbefore winter supplies. could bebrought in; and again the builders ofthe road ran out of money. At a massmeeting in Aspen, Dr. Rice explainedto· the interested citizens of that silvercamp that there were two courses theycould choose between. They couldeither organize a construction com­pany of their own to complete theroad the last few miles, or they couldturn the whole problem over to theBoard of County Commissioners ofPitkin County. The citizens chose thelatter course and the county commis­sioners in turn appointed H. A. Dayto negotiate sufficient warrants to com­plete the road. Mr. Day succeeded inhis purposce and by October 19th aforce of better than one hundred menwas making "rapid progress" on thesection leading into Aspen; on Novem­ber 1st, 1881, the first wagon joltedover the finished, but far from smooth­ly graded road, and six days later theroad was declared officially open fortravel. Much of the passenger andexpress service, although not all, tookto sleighs and cutters with the firstfall of snow, and all traffic was stoppedtemporarily in mid-November byheavy snows. Within a few days theuni,ted efforts of a number of work­men had scooped out a shallow troughof a road. All through the winter andfar into the spring a shovel brigadewas kept on call to clear the roadwayafter slides had swept down the moun­tain sides or harsh winds had swirledsnow into deep drifts.

Although no daily schedule couldbe maintained, Carson's express wag­ons or sleighs traveled back and forthbetween Leadville and Independenceand Aspen at fairly regular intervals.McDonald & McLain and Wall & Wit­ter apparently made infrequent cross-

ings during late 1881, but Earl S.Rockwell and George H. Bicknell,both of Leadville, organized a newline. Their complete outfit arrived inLeadville on November 22nd and con­sisted of

. . . three elegant mountain wag­ons, twenty-two head of horses, amongwhich is some of the finest stock everbrought into the mountains, harnessand all the other paraphernalia nec­essary for a complete equipment. Afine lap robe and a heavy wolf robehave been purchased for every seat,so that passengers crossing the rangemay entertain no fears of the depreda­tions of Jack Frost. From Twin Lakesthe trip will be made on sleighs dur­ing the winter, all of which have beenmade to order for this line. Therewill be five relays of stock betweenLeadville and Aspen, so the trip willbe made as expeditiously as possible;the trip will be made in eight hoursto Independence, and eleven hoursto Aspen. At first the trip will bemade to Independence, and then layover until the next morning, thusarriving at Aspen about half-pastten the next morning. Leaving As­pen at half-past two in the afternoon,will arrive in Leadville the followingafternoon at half-past three o'clock.

The initial trip of ,the Rockwell andBicknell line left from the ClarendonHotel, Leadville, at eight o'clock sharpthe following Friday morning andwas accomplished without incident.However, the erratic winter weatheradded not only to adventure but alsoto the hazards of staging across Inde­pendence, and on December 1st, theDaily Herald reported

A STAGE ACCIDENTThe perils of the pass have com­

menced in dead earnest as was provenat eleven o'clock on Tuesday morn­ing on the Independence road. Thesnow which fell a few weeks ago, inmany cases has been compelled tomelt under the warm rays of a lateNovember sun and the streams com-

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ing. from the mountain sides havebeen detained in their downwardcourse by the early nights and thefreezing atmosphere of the same. Inmany places ice has thus formed inthe roads through the mountainswhich promises to do damage dur­ing the winter months to those whosebusiness calls them to the outlying set­tlements. At the time above men­tioned Carson's coach was drivingtoward this city with Mrs. Mack, JoeHoyt, better known as Buckskin Joe,and Martin Sullivan as passengers.They had just left Everett's abouttwo hundred yards when there wasa very short turn and a steep down­grade encountered. The driverslacked the pace of his steeds but wasunable to keep the vehicle in an up­right position, for the hind wheeisslid off on the ice striking against astone careening the wagon over theside of the hill. It didn't turn over,but simply fell on its side, dumpingthe passengers in confusion andthrowing the driver into the bottomof the wagon. Buckskin Joe had beensitting by Mrs. Mack and consequent­ly was thrown out over her, but theseats caught her and piled upon her.As soon as the passengers recoveredfrom the shock the lady was foundin an insensible condition and badlybruised about the head and face.Her lower lip was frightfully lacer­ated and considerable trouble wasexperienced in restoring her to GaU­

sciousness. Buckskin Joe had his righthand dislocated while Mr. Sulliivanstruck his cheek against a rock, whichhe claims broke in two. His shoulderwas considerable bruised but no boneswere broken. A fortunate and nar­row escape fell to Buckskin Joe. Hiscartridge belt was torn and the capswere badly bent. The percussionpoint, however, escaped, which inall probability accounts for the sav­ing of Joe's life.

"When the coach had been rightedthe passengers regained their posi­tions and drove to ·VVolf's hotel, atthe upper Twin lake, where Mrs.Mack stopped and will receive med­ical care.

When Rockwell and Bicknell'scoach reached the place of disaster,the hind wheels of that conveyanceacted in the same manner, and thedriver was thrown from his seat, head­long into the road. By his side satSamuel Lessme, Esq., who, seeing theperilous position of the driver, gath­ered in the lines and halted thehorses. No sooner had this been donethan both traces on the off horsedropped out, but caused no damage.The equilibrium of the coach wasmaintained and nobody was hurt,the driver escaping injury simply bya miracle. The passengers all arrivedin town on very close to time.

Unda.unted by snow or accidents,"Kit" Carson, and Wall & Witter(who purchased the Rockwell-Bick­

nell equipment in January of 1882)continued to operate the two stageand express lines. Optimistically, inFebruary, both companies announcedfrom that time forth their coachesand/or sleighs would, by leaving Lead­ville at 7:30 in the morning, make thetrip to Aspen in one day-a time sched­ule which neither company couldmaintain with any degree of regularityuntil the summer months.

Late in the spring of '82, three­toll-gates were established betweenthe Lakes and Aspen, one on thewestern limits of the town of TwinLakes, the next at Bromley on theeastern approach to IndependencePass, and the last at ,!\Teller, east ofAspen. One of Twin Lakes leadingcitizens tells us in his booklet entitledPatTick ]. Ryan Remembers that theCarson stages had

... four horses to a coach exceptfrom Bromley to ,,,reller, where theyused six horses.

From Leadville to Twin Lakes theyused Concord stages. The coachesover the range were what they calledcanvas-top coaches. The Concordstages carried fourteen passengers andthe driver, while the canvas coaches

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carried eight passengers and the driv­er. There were two> each way fromAspen to Twin Lakes, but one to andfrom Leadville seven days a week.The stages left Leadville at 7 a. m.,arriving about 9 at Twin Lakes. Bythe time they made their transfer, itwas noon when they reached Bromley,and when roads were good they wouldget into Aspen around 5 p. m. Thefare was $8.

Once the operation of the road wasestablished the counties regulated thetoll charges; for example the LakeCounty commissioners ordered thatthe rate of toll to be charged by theTwin Lakes and Roaring Fork roadshould be from June 18, 1884 to June17, 1886 as follows:

Vehicle drawn by span of horses oryoke of oxen m m $1.00Each additional span or yoke .25Saddle horse or pack animaL__ .15Loose cattle and horses______ .05Loose hogs and sheep_mmm__uu .02

Besides the passenger service bothlines transported express articles-any­thing from "I Iron Bench Screw 1 in.,"to bullion. The carrying of bullionby the stage lines was both a respon­sibility and a risk. On one occasionnearly $9,000 worth of gold was lostin the mountains west of Twin Lakes.F. M. Brown, the manager of theFarwell Consolidated Mining Com­pany of Independence, deposited threegold bricks, the aggregate value ofwhich was $20,000, with the cashier ofthe Bank of Pitkin County. The cash­ier then placed the bricks, each in itsown separate are sack, in a large gun­ny sack for shipping on a Wall & Wit­ter stage. When the stage was readyto leave Independence for Leadvilleit was too heavily loaded, so anotherhorse on which the gunny sack of goldwas packed was placed in front of thecoach. The horse was thus kept infront of the stage as far as Everett's on

the opposite side of IndependencePass. Here, while the passengers werestretching their legs, the driverchecked the pack animal, and a sight"for which he was illy prepared" methis eyes. The part of the sack on thefar side of the -horse was hangingempty. A big hole told the story thatsomewhere along the route the brick,uhe largest of the three, had droppedout, its weight and the constant rub­bing against the side of the pack ani·mal having wmn the hole. The driverimmediately reported the loss to Mr.Brown, who was on the coach, andthe two went out on foot in searchof the brick, which Brown estimatedto be worth nearly $9,000. Theyscoured the road all the way back toIndependence but no trace of thelost gold was found. Upon returningto Everett's late that night, they weremet with the rejoicing news thatCharles Bennett, a passenger on thecoach, had discovered the brick allcovered with dirt and dust in the mid­dle of the road less than a mile westof Everett's.

As well as staging with its associateexpress service over the toll-road, therewas heavy freighting from 1882 untilthe railroads reached Aspen. Mr.Ryan said that on many days he hadseen "a half mile of freighters pullinginto Twin Lakes at a time." The larg­est of these outfits were run by JimMcGee, three-finger Jack, Holbrook,Finn Davis, Lewellon Blank and JohnBorrell. Most of the freighting origin­ated in Granite or Leadville wheresupplies, mining and milling equip­ment had been shipped by rail. Theseoutfits had their difficulties such asbreakdowns in the middle of the nar­row roadway, snow-wagons stuck indrifts, conveyances or freight slidingfrom the road to the bottom of thecanyon, loss of animals tha t fell fromthe road, many of which were killed

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by the fall, and high prices for feed.John Borrell recalled some of thesedifficulties as follows:

Once, it was during the dead ofwinter, and the snow had been fallinguntil it was as much as ten feet deep,the round trip to Aspen proved to beone of my worst experiences. Al­though traffic was heavy, the snowdrifted so badly that the road wasnot kept open. We were at one place,between Bromley's and the top ofthe range for three days and nightsin a traffic jam. That may soundodd, but it is true. Someone got stuckin the snow, teams began to line up,unable to pass, until they reachedin both directions for a great dis­tance, and it was impossible for any­one to advance in either direction.'f\Te finally cleared up the jam bycarrying sleds, stages and wagons, andtheir loads out of the road and tonew positions. It was mighty laborand we were all exhausted from ourefforts.

Then at other places, where theway down was steep, we traveled toofast. At this time I was driving a sixhorse team with wagon and trailer.It was almost impossible to hold theheavy load. At times I found it neces­sary to put four rough-locks on thetrailer and two on the wagon to keepthem under control. Even then oneof my wheelers fell and was draggedat least 100 feet before we could getstopped; but it didn't kill him. Ofcourse the price of feed rocketed atthe stopping places, and we paid tencents per pound for hay and grain.The round trip required fourteendays and nights and I lost $100 onmy last trip which was also my worst.

Lewellon Blank recalled in an in-terview that during the muddy sea­son of 1883 the freighters operatingbetween Granite and Aspen lost manyof their horses through a strange footinfection. The first symptom waslameness, then the hoof would turnblue, swell and burst; within six hours

the horse or mule suffering in thismanner would die. The infection wasbelieved to have been a hoof rotcaused by poisonous mud on the eastside of Independence Pass. Fortunate­ly, there appears to have been no re­currence of the disease.

During the fall of 1882, the Lead­ville papers reported "The BoldestHold-Up On Record" on the toll-roadbetween Twin Lakes and Leadville.Considerable loot was taken from sev­en passengers on Carson's stage, andit was the recovery of some of this lootwhich led to the arrest of five men, in­cluding the driver of the stage coach,some four months later in Februaryof 1883. In a queer twist of circum­stances, only one of the men, FrederickJudge, was convicted and sentencedto a five-year prison term. He turnedstate's evidence, admitted and evenboasted of his part in the hold-up,while the others went free because allevidence introduced was so indefiniteand con tradictory that there was reas­onable doubt as to their guilt.

On June 6th, 1884, Samuel Derryshot General H. B. Bearce, prominentDenver mining man, near the junctionof the Twin Lakes toll-road with theHussey Placer road. General Bearcewas taken to the toll-gate house anddied there.

Such were some of the happeningsalong the Twin Lakes and RoaringFord road during the 1880's.

As soon as the stage, express andfreight companies learned the Colo­rado Midland and the Denver and RioGrande railroads were competing forthe honor of reaching Aspen first, theyrealized their business opportunitieswere coming -to a close in that area. Bythis time, autumn of 1887, only oneof the staging companies, that of .J. C.Carson, was still in operation, McDon­ald & McLain and Wall & Wittterhaving gone out of business several

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years earlier. Carson though held onto the end, with the last of his line'sadvertisements appearing in the Oc­tober 22nd Leadville Hemld Demo­cmt, and with the October 25th issueof the paper reporting:

"Kit" Carson sent out the last stagefor Aspen yesterday morning. Untilthe Denver and Rio Grande gets. toAspen his' stages will meet all trainsfrom the end of the track. Thus an­other relic of the early days givesaway before the great civilizer, theiron horse.

The toll-gates were closed downsoon after and no written records ofany further use of the toll-road as suchfrom 1888 on have been found. None­theless the road was used to some ex­tent. Austin Stevens, a former toll­gate manager at Bromley, brought hisgranddaughter from Aspen to TwinLakes via. the old road in the early1900's and a few other people remem­ber taking excursions over the roadin the surruner times to camp out orto enjoy the scenery. A little before"worId "Val' I, engineers surveyed aroad for automobile use over the passand this road was completed in 1920under the supervision of Elwood B.Harlan. It is of interest to note thatMr. Harlan was the son-in-law of Dr.J. E. Rice, who, it will be remembered,was the originator of the Twin Lakesand Roaring Fork Toll-Road. In the1930's the road on the eastern sidewas improved .considerably becauseof the construction of the Twin LakesDiversion Tunnel, and in recent yearsboth sides of Independence Pass havebeen further improved and main­tained as a scenic summer highway.In 1950 the first six miles of the road

(from the Arkansas River to the west­ern edge of Twin Lakes) was given acoating of hard-top, and here it is i.n­teresting to record that State Repre­sentative Frank E. Kendrick Jr., whosewife, Alicia, is the daughter of the El­wood Harlans, helped greatly in thesecuring of this improvement.

Although parts of the old toll-roadare a part of the modern State High­way 82 which now crosses Independ­ence Pass, a little searching and hik­ing will reveal the old road wilth itssharp curves, log poles put down overswamps and its steep inclines. Evi­dence of the stage stops at Everett'sand Independence can still be seen,but nearly all other material evidenceis gone.

Book Reviews (Continued)

McLoughlin-his personal finances,his children, his land holdings in thelower St. Lawrence River valley, sur­prisingly little of the correspondencehas anything to do with the FurTrade, the Hudson's Bay Company orthe North West Company, whichwould be of prime interest to studentsof "Vestern Americana.

However, if the reader wishes awell-rounded picture of Dr. John Mc­Loughlin and his activibies, especiallyin his earlier years in and around theMunay Bay area of French Canadain the early 1800's, the book will beof value.

Dr. Barker has done an excellentjob of correlating the letters and re­lated material and the volume is insplendid format as are all volumesprepared by the Arthur H. Clark Co.

Armand W. Reeder

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