Unsinkable Margaret Brown

Built in 1887, Molly Brown House is a home of character with a great history and earned popularity. Margaret "Molly" Brown lived in the Victorian mansion there, on and off, until her death in 1932. Margaret Tobin Brown died of a brain tumor on October 26, 1932, in New York City She was 65 years old. The Browns moved to Denver after they struck-it-rich, and, in 1894, bought a Victorian in the fashionable Capitol Hill neighborhood.

The "unsinkable Molly Brown" moved into this stone Victorian home after she and her husband struck it rich at a gold mine in Colorado's mountains, nearly 20 years before she boarded the Titanic because it was the first boat she could get back home to visit her ailing grandson.

She and her husband J.J. Brown struck it rich in the gold rush in Leadville and moved to Denver to enjoy a l avish lifestyle. Ballet Ariel director Ilena Norton choreographed Tale of Molly Brown.” She likes to turn to history when looking for stories for new ballets, noting that Brown was an important figure in Colorado history.

Broadway, then later Hollywood, paid tribute to the Denver socialist with musical "The Unsinkable Molly Brown," which MGM made into a movie in 1964. She married mining Vacation engineer J.J. Brown, who developed a method of shoring up mine walls so that mines could be dug deeper, which led to the 1893 discovery of gold in the Little Johnny Mine.

She was known as the Unsinkable because of her determination to return to the Titanic's wreckage looking for survivors—but Margaret Brown lived a life worthy of her place in history long before she helped lead rescue efforts aboard the famed ocean liner.

The house was sold by the children after the Browns' deaths and the furnishings sold off as well at an estate sale. And, of course, visitors will hear the harrowing first-hand account of Margaret's experiences aboard Titanic and her efforts to aid the survivors both aboard the rescue ship Carpathia and throughout the remainder of her life.

A look at the life and legend of Colorado's own Molly Brown. Tragedy struck the extended family of the Browns when Daniel Tobin's wife passed away. When Margaret was eighteen, she moved to Leadville, Colorado, with her brother and sister, inspired by tales of overnight success in the untamed West.