 With the corresponding reduction in stage traffic and tolls, the Twin Lakes and Roaring Fork Toll Company could not afford to keep the road clear over the winter of 1886.Two years later, after the railroads began service, the company folded and abandoned the road.Independence itself met the same fate a decade later when its remaining population decamped to Aspen during the severe winter of 1899, leaving its buildings standing as a ghost town (one remaining resident lingered until 1920).