The Independence Mine and Mill is located on the south slope of Battle Mountain at an altitude of approximately 9,780 feet.  In 1891, Winfield Scott Stratton made the first major strike of gold in the Cripple Creek/Victor area.  The most intensive period of development of the mine coincided with the repeal of the Sherman Silver Purchase Act and the restoration of the gold standard of currency.  

The simple two-story wood frame building has a flat roof.  The community erected the building in 1899.  By 1900, Goldfield was the third largest town in the booming Cripple Creek mining district. 

The ranch is associated with the early settlement and agricultural development of the Florissant area.  The oldest structures date to the 1875 homesteading of the ranch.  

Adaline Hornbek was one of the early settlers of the region west of Pikes Peak, homesteading the property in 1878.  Located within Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument, the house is one of the best surviving examples of domestic log architecture in the Rocky Mountain Region.

The simple one-story wood frame building sits on a rubble stone foundation.  Walls are covered with asphalt siding in a tan brick pattern, and the front gabled roof is steeply pitched. 

The Cripple Creek mining district, originally pronounced worthless by mining experts, produced an estimated $400,000,000 in gold.  At its peak, there were over five hundred mines.

Moved to the site in 1933, the cabin is associated with the development of tourism in the area.  The two-room log cabin rests on a concrete slab and has a front gabled roof with exposed purlins.  Listed under Dinosaur National Monument Multiple Resource Area.

The alcove in which the site is located is important because it embodies the distinctive characteristics of a particular Fremont culture site type, thus contributing to the understanding of the Fremont culture.

The initials "DJ" and the year 1838 are inscribed on a canyon wall.  Denis Julien had a long career as a trapper and mountain man and left similar inscriptions in Utah, some of which are now hidden by reservoirs.  

The complex is representative of a family operated ranch as it developed over more than fifty years and two generations.  The family operated the ranch from 1902 through the early 1970s when it was purchased by the National Park Service.