Cripple Creek Colorado - Worlds Greatest Gold Camp

COLORADO LEGENDS

Cripple Creek - World's Greatest Gold

Camp

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Vintage Cripple Creek Postcard

Today the fame of The Cripple Creek Gold Camp ranks with London, Paris and other money centers of the world, for, while the great money centers may handle and control more of the world's assets, Cripple Creek actually adds more new money to the treasury of the world than any other place. Nearly $2,000,000 are added every month to the world's wealth by the product from the hills within The District of Cripple Creek.

-- Cripple Creek Times, 1904

The first discovery of gold in the Pikes Peak region was made in 1874 when a man named T.H Lowe picked up some rich ore in a meadow near the present site of Cripple Creek. Excited, he quickly organized a prospecting party to search the nearby gulches. Though they found a little gold, there was not enough to warrant mining and soon they departed.

It would be another ten years before any gold was heard of again. In the spring of 1884, word spread that a man named Chicken Bill was taking nuggets out of the ground by the handful. Three thousand men quickly swarmed the area to find absolutely nothing. Soon, it was discovered that the nuggets produced by Chicken Bill were from a salted mine and the disappointed miners quickly left in search of more profitable opportunities.

In December of 1890 a man named Bob Womack really did discover gold, but miners were slow to respond remembering the hoax of six years prior. By the summer of 1891 Wommack struck a very rich vein and hurried to Colorado Springs to celebrate. In a drunken stupor the foolish man sold his mine for $500 cash. Word then spread and men began to stake claims all over a six mile square area surrounding what would soon be The Cripple Creek Gold Camp.

Tents and cabins began to spring up and a mining district was organized in the fall of 1891. The creek, which flowed through the camp, had already been named by area cowboys, because so many cattle were lamed while crossing the rocky stream. The camp took its name from the creek. The land where the many claims were being staked was owned by Denver real estate men Horance Bennett and Julius Myers and they soon platted eighty acres for a town site, selling lots to the many miners and their families flooding the area. At first, the two men wanted to call the new town Fremont, but the post office officials rejected the name as there was already one by that name in Colorado. Soon, they settled with the name of the creek.

By the time the town was officially incorporated in 1892, there were already over 5000 Gold Camp residents.

In 1892, most of the gold was found from placer mining, enough to sustain the burgeoning camp. Two stage lines began to carry people to Cripple Creek from Divide and Canon City, and before long Cripple Creek was home to some 4,000 people.

Pikes Peak Prospector in 1900

Pikes Peak Prospector in 1900, courtesy Library of Congress

In the winter of 1892, stock brokers began to arrive in Cripple Creek, selling mining stocks to the excited people of the area and around the nation.

In 1893 two big mines in the district were discovered and developed, and with the nation’s change to the gold standard in the same year, thousands of silver miners were thrown out of work, flocking to Cripple Creek. The deeper the mines were developed, the richer the veins became. Some of these deep developed mines were three to six miles away and soon the camp of Victor sprang up with many of the miners moving closer to work. However, by this time Cripple Creek was well enough established that it had little impact on the growing community.

Like most booming gold camps, Cripple Creek wasted no time establishing dozens of businesses, including a number of saloons and brothels. At first the houses of “ill-repute” were located near the many saloons along Bennett Avenue, the main street of the settlement. However, to keep the peace between the business establishment and the “ladies,” Marshal Wilson moved the “girls” and their establishments one block south to Myers Avenue, which soon became known as the Red Light District.

Myers Avenue was known as one of the liveliest streets in the Old West. The phrase "There'll be a Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight" was coined on this street filled with parlour houses, “cribs,” dance halls and false-front saloons. Businesses on the “Row” never closed, operating twenty-four hours a day providing entertainment to the many free-spending miners.

Continued Next Page

ALSO SEE:

Cripple Creek Attractions

Ghosts of the Cripple Creek Mining District

Pearl de Vere - Soiled Dove of Cripple Creek

Victor - The City of Mines

Cripple Creek, Colorado, 1895, courtesy Library of Congress

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