This, the easiest ghost town to see, is viewable from a parked car
and presents a host of interesting shots for the artistic
photographer.
[Illustration: 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.
One historian has contended that Stumptown is really Stumpftown, named
for Joseph Stumpf. This seems unlikely as Stumpf was reportedly engaged
in placering north of Leadville in the lower reaches of Evans Gulch some
six miles from Stumptown on the Stumpf placer in the 1890’s. In 1897 he
obtained the job of hoistman at the Little Jonny mine. At that time,
seventeen years after Stumptown’s beginnings, Stumpf went to live in
Stumptown to be close to his job at the mine. Apparently he lived in the
same two-room log cabin (now gone) on the north face of Breece Hill that
had been formerly occupied in 1886 by Jim Brown and his bride, Maggie
(later “The Unsinkable”). The cabin may very easily have been the
property of the Ibex Mining Company, owner of the Little Jonny.
Stumptown began in 1880 with a main street that ran parallel to South
Evans Gulch on the west side of the creek. It grew up around the
activities of such mines as the Little Bob, St. Louis, Louise, Gold
Basin, Winnie, Ollie Reed and Little Ellen (all of which were in South
Evans Gulch). Above it on the face of Breece Hill were such famous
producers as the Fanny Rawlings, the Big Four, the five shafts of the
Little Jonny, the Modoc and the Eclipse.
As “suburbs” of Leadville went, the town was fairly conservative. It was
largely residential with a number of saloons, a pool hall and a fine
school house. This building may still be seen in Leadville at the
southwest corner of Sixth and Hemlock Streets where it was moved to
serve as the Union Hall.
Stumptown has only two dwellings left and is a complete ghost town, but
unique because of “The Unsinkable,” an Irish lass who survived the
sinking of the _Titanic_.
[Illustration: D.K.P., 1960]