By Steven Wade Veatch
No one really stays the
same in life; our experiences shape us. Places change us. For me, a place, the
Cripple Creek Mining District, influenced my life and made
significant changes in me. I remember childhood days going to Cripple Creek, my
mind spiked with curiosity and a sense of fascination, and with wide eyes
marveling at the tall head frames marking where mining took place in the late
19th century. Over the many decades
that followed I developed a strong bond to Cripple Creek where a true sense of place
developed through a growing knowledge of the history, its legends, it geology.
Memories of rock
hunting, attending Victorian melodrama, and exploring the landscape make this place
special. I learned to play the bluegrass song Cripple Creek from memory on my guitar and pursued a
master’s degree in Earth Science. These things anchored me to the gold camp
while shaping my mind and my life.
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| A mining scene in the Cripple Creek Mining District. Original watercolor art by Steven Wade Veatch. |
The decades blend and blur, but the story of dreams, desires,
and building a mining district in the sleepy hills next to the quiet granite of
Pikes Peak remains compelling. The Cripple Creek Mining District lies on the
southwestern side of 14,115-foot-high Pikes Peak in southern Colorado. Bob
Womack, a ranch hand and itinerant prospector, discovered gold in late October,1890 that all
of the other prospectors missed. His discovery sparked a rush of
prospectors into to the area under a quiet sky. Soon low-grade ore deposits in
unyielding igneous rocks led to the unearthing of rich veins of gold. Miners spread
across the district and dug fortunes out the six-square-mile bowl of gold. The
high concentrations of gold telluride minerals made this place like no other in
North America. The area soon became known as the World’s Greatest Gold Camp.
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| Cripple Creek, looking northeast. The partly wooded knob on the left is Rhyolite Mountain. Just beyond the town are Mineral and Carbonate hills and in the background is Pikes Peak. Teller County, Colorado. September 181903, plate 4-B in U.S. Geological Survey. Professional paper 54. 1906d |
The nationwide Silver Panic of 1893 and with it tough
economic times made people consider how their whole lives could turn out to be
nothing with an endless supply of extraordinary ordinariness. Cripple
Creek made a difference: a golden beacon of promise shone across the nation
from Cripple Creek as newspapers carried exciting stories of gold. Cripple
Creek brought the nation new hope. This state of affairs brought thousands of
out-of-work men, fortune seekers, and fortune makers who poured into the gold
camp searching for work, wealth, and wonder. Together the miners, mine owners,
merchants and all the people of the mining district consumed life at a fever
pitch. The gold rush to Cripple Creek forever changed the landscape where mountain
men once explored and the Ute Indians roamed.
Cripple Creek sprawled around the base of Mount Pisgah
where grassy hills, dotted with wildflowers, became an instant city of tents
and log cabins. The wind buzzed as it passed the corners of the cabins while the
sun rose over the goldfields. Soon lumbermen built sawmills that produced a
supply of sawn boards for the well-to-do townspeople who built large, two- or
three-story frame houses. In this brawling, raucous, free-for-all mining camp
food was expensive, water scarce, and whiskey plentiful.
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| Cripple Creek, looking west from Gold Hill. The Midget and Conundrum mines are in the foreground and Mount Pisgah is in the background. Teller County, Colorado. October 3, 1903, plate 4-A in U.S. Geological Colorado Professional Paper 54. 1906. |
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| Bull cliff and town of Independence, Vindicator mine to right. Teller County, Colorado. October 7, 1903, plate 25-B in U.S. Geological Survey. Professional paper 54. 1906 |
The district’s population in 1900 climbed to 50,000
people served by hotels, restaurants, lawyers, and brokerage houses. A number
of assay offices, overflowing with lab equipment, operated in the district. Bankers
had long lunches with mine owners in restaurants graced with china plates,
white napkins, and sparkling glasses. Children attended crowded schools, and newspapers
printed the headlines of the day. Busy mining men took time out for a drink of
whiskey in saloons; business was brisk at dance halls, pool halls, and theaters.
A notorious red-light district on Meyers Avenue sprang to life each evening
when the sun slid behind Mineral Hill.
The people who traveled to the Cripple Creek Mining District brought their institutions and customs, including
fraternal organizations, band concerts, opera, theater, and religion. Sunday
church services were an important part of life in the gold camp. Miners
celebrated the Fourth of July with enthusiasm that included parades and games.
Sporting events were a big draw in Cripple Creek with the townspeople attending
boxing matches, baseball games, and firemen’s races.
As the gold camp grew, railroads linked the area to
the outside and kept the district provided with food, supplies, and equipment. Teamsters
drove horse- and mule-drawn wagons with creaking wagon wheels along a winding
dirt road to bring in supplies while muleskinners hauled ore to local smelters.
Streets bubbled with activity from curb to curb while
the pace of business filled the air with whispering motes of gold dust. Each
morning the sun greeted Bennett Avenue—illuminating outdoor advertising of
patent medicines painted onto the bricks of commercial buildings—and brought
the promise of energy, commerce, and hope for the day.
The gold camp had its share of production
problems. The gold in Cripple Creek was
unlike the gold ore in other western mining camps. Cripple Creek’s gold was locked
in gold-telluride minerals. This
mineralogy required different methods of ore reduction. The chlorination
process, instead of the standard stamp milling and amalgamation process,
separated gold from gold-bearing minerals in its host rock. Later in the district cyanide leaching—a more
efficient process—replaced chlorination.
Water became a serious problem as underground workings
deepened and hit the water table. To mitigate this issue, drainage tunnels were
driven to drain the mines. The Carlton Tunnel, completed in 1941, was the
longest of these drainage tunnels and drained the deepest levels of the
Vindicator Mine. These tunnels of hope filled with murmuring water emptied into
Fourmile Creek.
Mining precious metals from the hard rock of Cripple
Creek’s gold mines contributed to the recovery of the nation after the Silver
Panic and contributed to the economic development of Colorado. The Pikes Peak
region’s economy boomed from the goldfields. The district created 30
millionaires from its large and famous mines. Winfield Scott Stratton, a
Colorado Springs carpenter, prospected in the hills for 15 years and struck it
rich on the 4th of July 1901 when he claimed the Independence Mine. He later
sold it for $11 million. Spencer Penrose and Charles Tutt sold the C. O. D.
Mine to a French syndicate. Penrose used his share of the profits to build the
celebrated Broadmoor Hotel in Colorado Springs and to invest in Utah copper
mining.
After WWII, most of the mines were not profitable and
shut down. In 1976, Texasgulf and Golden Cycle formed a joint venture, the
Cripple Creek & Victor Mining Company to restart mining in the district. This year marked the revival of gold mining
in the district. The Cresson Mine was permitted in 1994 as an open pit mine and
gold production increased each year.
Through mergers and acquisitions, ownership of the Cripple Creek &
Victor Gold Mining Company changed. Today, the Newmont Mining Company owns the
mining operations. In 2014 the company poured 266,000 ounces of gold; and in
2015 poured its five-millionth ounce.
Limited-stakes gambling, approved by the voters of
Colorado in 1991, added to the resurgence of Cripple Creek. The historic brick
buildings on Bennett Avenue re-energized as casinos. Today gold is mined around
the clock in the goldfields again, and is changing the landscape once again. The
renewed mining combined with limited-stakes gambling constitute a rebirth of
the district and revitalized Cripple Creek and Victor.
When I go to the
Cripple Creek and Victor Mining District, I feel the presence of grandparents and
ancestors working in the mines and making a living there. I feel of the sun and
shifting mountain breeze. I see the headframes and prospects that dot the land,
and smell the burning coal in the steam engine that leaves from the depot next
to the Cripple Creek District Museum. I sense the identity and character of the
district that is valued deeply by residents. I am connected to this place. I spend time
there, and share my feelings and the stories of the unique human experiences
that makes this the World’s Greatest Gold Camp.
The World’s Greatest Gold Camp has refused to fade
into the mists of history, but remains the source of legend.
