The Aspen Valley Land Trust acquired the privately held collection of log cabin ruins high on Independence Pass, thanks to the help of Pitkin County and a private benefactor who are seeing that the 150-acre site will remain a ghost town and a popular tourist attraction.

"It's a real gem," said Dale Will, director of the county Open Space and Trails department. "We consider this a very important parcel. . . . You've got it all: habitat values, scenic values, recreational values, historic values."

The town site between Twin Lakes and Aspen, which dates to the discovery of a nearby gold-and-silver mine on Independence Day in 1879, has been owned for years by the Louchran family and was put on the market two years ago at a $2.3 million asking price.

"Whenever you've got something on the market, it's a roll of the dice as far as who's going to buy it and what they're going to do with it," said Will, who noted that the parcel had been zoned to accommodate up to five modern cabins. "It's real easy to imagine that some real aggressive developer could have bought it and tried to maximize the development up there."

But the Aspen Valley Land Trust - a private, nonprofit, conservation organization - dipped into its funds for more than $100,000 and then negotiated a four-way deal that involved the county's chipping in $300,000, a $700,000 "loan" from Eagle County landowner Bob Levine, and leaving the Louchrans with four transferable development rights that can be sold for an estimated $250,000 each.

"It's something we've worked really hard to do for the past two years," said Reid Haughey, executive director of the land trust. "It is one of the few places in the country where people who are in their cars can step out and experience a wilderness area, and we didn't want to lose that as well as the historic townsite."

Ultimately, the land trust plans to turn the property over to the U.S. Forest Service as a "deal sweetener" for a land exchange being proposed in Eagle County by Levine, a retired computer-network pioneer from New Hampshire.

By including the high-profile Independence site, Levine hopes to speed up the land-exchange process, which sometimes can take years, according to his attorney, John Dunn.

Additionally, the parcel will be worth an estimated $400,000 in the exchange, an amount that partially will offset the never-to-be-collected loan Levine made to the land trust.

"He forgives the loan as a donation. It's very generous," Haughey said.

Levine does not intend to develop the Eagle County land beyond a single home he is building, according to Dunn.

Since the Independence site is a private "inholding" completely surrounded by the White River National Forest and on the boundary of two wilderness areas, its acquisition had become a priority in recent years for the U.S. Forest Service.

The town, about 17 miles southeast of Aspen, underwent a variety of name changes in its boom days, which lasted a scant 10 years, according to "Colorado Ghost Towns and Mining Camps" by noted Colorado historian Sandra Dallas.

"The name of the town known generally as Independence has been changed again and now is Sparkhill," wrote one newspaper of the day. "This is about the fourth change. It is expected to hold good for a week or 10 days."