The Doors of Cripple Creek, Colorado #ThursdayDoors

I’ve been going through my Cripple Creek photos because I wanted to make my own “Thursday Doors” post. Inspired by all the doors featured on Dan Antion’s No Facilities blog site.

Far from being a ghost town, as many of the mining communities in Colorado have become today, the town of Cripple Creek is teaming with live bodies of both locals and tourists. Cripple Creek is a historic mining town and they’ve kept much of the original buildings and architecture. Today, Cripple Creek is one several places in Colorado where gambling is legal, and new buildings are also required to follow the historic motif.

Fun & Interesting Facts About Cripple Creek, Colorado

• It’s said that Cripple Creek got its name when a miner’s horse was crippled walking through a stream when it was a big cattle ranching community, before gold was discovered in 1890 by a man named Bob Womack.
• It has also been said that Bob Womack and his family named it after Cripple Creek, Virginia, near their hometown in Kentucky, but I think the first explanation is more colorful.
• Cripple Creek was the destination of Colorado’s last big gold rush spurred in 1891.
• In 1894, the small mining town of Cripple Creek boasted a population of 6,000 residents and had over 150 active mines, producing over three million dollars. They had four newspapers, five churches, and more than 300 prostitutes.
• The population of Cripple Creek reached 10,000 in 1896. In April of that year, fire spread through the town built of wooden structures, not once but twice. The first fire ravaged the towns main business district on April 25th, in spite of the town’s heroic efforts to stop the blaze and about a quarter of the homes and businesses of the town were lost. Just as they began to rebuild and try to recover, on April 29th, a second fire swept through the town. With firefighting resources exhausted by the first fire, firefighters resorting to blasting buildings with dynamite in an attempt to halt the spread of the blaze, flattening most of the business district and half of the homes. For this reason, They rebuilt the town, but new businesses were banned from building with wood so brick was used, which wouldn’t burn as easily as wood, even replacing the wooden boardwalks with brick sidewalks which are there to this day.
• At it’s height the Teller County mining district as a whole had a population of between 30,000 and 50,000 residents, and over 500 active mines, which had already produced over $77 million dollars in gold ore.
• The Old Homestead House was a high-end brothel, run by the infamous Madam, Pearl DeVere. Clients went through a rigorous application process, including scrutinization of their finances. If a applicant didn’t have at a million dollars in the bank, they weren’t granted an appointment. Clients were granted entry by appointment only, and the girls were paid well for their services. Prostitution wasn’t a legal occupation, but the law had to look the other way or the town would have forfeited the ample money paid in taxes and fees by the soiled doves and bordello proprieters.
• Cripple Creek is one of the few boomtowns of the 1800s to continue productive mining operations today. The Cripple Creek & Victor Mine is now run by is now run by Newmont and continues to produce generous amounts of over 100,000 of gold and silver each year, employing 500 employees.
• Cripple Creek is in one of three historical districts in Colorado where gambling has been legal since 1989. Today they have over twelve casinos which generate money which provides revenue to preserve important historic buildings.