Windy Point: A Photographic Essay

By Steven Wade Veatch

A collection of rare photographs of Windy Point, a tiny map-dot community situated on a saddle between Bull and Raven hills in the Cripple Creek Mining District, have turned up in the archives of the Cripple Creek District Museum.

A generalized map of the Cripple Creek Mining District. A red arrow shows the location of Windy Point. North is toward the top of the map. Modified from Munn (1984).

Margaret Benson (Mortensen), who spent part of her childhood in Windy Point, donated those photos which belong to another time. The photographer was Nils Tycho Schedin who, with John Lehman, had a photography studio on Bennett Avenue in Cripple Creek in the early 1900s. Schedin was known in the area for his gelatin silver prints. He later moved to Leadville and had a photography studio there from 1908 to 1923 (Colorado Mountain History Collection). Margaret Benson’s father was a close friend of Nils Schedin.

A view of Windy Point. Mines and prospects cover the landscape. This is written on the back of the photo: "The hillside at Windy Point as it looked in 1904." Photo by Nils Tycho Schedin circa 1904. From the Margaret Benson (Mortensen) collection, courtesy of the Cripple Creek District Museum A8367.

The Windy Point area was open and rugged country that spread out in all directions. A few clumps of trees dotted the landscape. It was high country, swept by stubborn winds that seemed to come in one way and then another. It is now a place lost to time.

Windy Point was one of the smaller communities in the Cripple Creek Mining District where miners made their homes and worked in nearby mines (Collins, 2016). The Directory of the Cripple Creek Mining District for 1900 listed only 44 households and one business, the Windy Point Boardinghouse, run by S.C. Hoskins, who had six boarders living there. 

The women of Windy Point maintained a sororal relationship and staged social activities ranging from quilting to hosting various meetings. A reporter for the Cripple Creek Morning Times wrote about a Miss Brown, who hosted a meeting of a local club in her Windy Point home in January 1900 (Collins, 2016).

The Benson family lived in Windy Point for several years. John Benson and his wife brought up their daughter Margaret (Mortensen) there. The persistent wind reminded the Benson family of the difficulty in living at this high elevation and enduring winters that were so cold that the air cracked like ice. 

This rare photo shows the John Benson home in Windy Point, a simple wooden frame building.  Everyone is dressed up. Margaret Benson (Mortensen) wrote on the back of this photo: "Our home at Windy Point. My parents John and Christina Benson and myself (Margaret)." Photo by Nils Tycho Schedin circa 1904. From the Margaret Benson (Mortensen) collection, courtesy of the Cripple Creek District Museum A8368. 

Members of the Benson family sitting in their yard. Mining activity can be seen in the background. Margaret Benson (Mortensen) wrote on the back: "My mother Christina Benson and Grandma Colley and myself in our yard in Windy Point.” Photo by Nils Tycho Schedin circa 1905. From the Margaret Benson (Mortensen) collection, courtesy of the Cripple Creek District Museum A8369.

Floyd Miller also called Windy Point home. During the violent 1903-1904 labor strike in the district, Harry Orchard supposedly gave Floyd Miller money to buy explosives for him (Turner, 1907). Orchard used the explosives to make a bomb. On June 6, 1904, a bomb, made with between 150 and 200 pounds of dynamite, exploded at the Independence Depot of the Florence and Cripple Creek Railroad, killing 13 non-union men waiting for a train (Jameson, 1998).

Windy Point was near several mines, including the New Haven and Joe Dandy. The local mines were busy, and the sounds of gold mining hung in the air. Cages shook and rattled as they carried men and ore up and down shafts. Whistles blew, ore cars clacked, bells rang, and mills thumped. The wind played among the mine headframes, making them moan. An article in the Colorado Springs Weekly Gazette (1904) described a gold strike at the Ramona mine on the southwestern slope of Bull Hill, next to the War Eagle mine. A later report revealed the shaft at the Happy Year mine, straight as a straw, had reached a depth of 350 feet by 1916, and the War Eagle continued shipments of ore (Carroll, 1916).

Windy Point was also a stop, about one-half mile south of the town of Midway, on the “High Line” of the Cripple Creek District Electric Railway (Directory of the Cripple Creek Mining District, 1900). The High Line trolley ran between Cripple Creek and Victor and went through several towns and mines as it wound its way up Bull Hill, reaching an altitude of 10,500 feet; a trip billed as the highest electric railway in America (Cafky, 1955).

The “High Line” of the Cripple Creek District Electric Railway nearing Midway in the winter. Undated photo by Edgar Yelton. Courtesy of the Cripple Creek District Museum 9254.

Riders were treated to scenic panoramas where purple mountains—old as time—cut into a quiet sky behind rounded hills. When service started on January 3, 1898, the trolley reached an average speed of about 10 miles per hour, making the round trip between Cripple Creek and Victor in 90 minutes (Street Railway Journal, 1898). Trolley speeds were later increased to make the round trip in one hour (Street Railway Journal, 1898). Later, trolleys ran every two hours on the High Line route. Additional runs were made during shift changes at the mines (Cafky, 1955).  

To the Bensons, Windy Point was a gritty place where one day faded away into another—an endless sameness of mining in the gold camp. After a few years, the Benson family said goodbye to their friends and left. Others left too. And as the gold boom subsided and time passed, people continued, one by one, to leave until Windy Point was empty and as still as a stone.

The old days of Windy Point are gone, vanished from sight and memory. Much of the town’s history is lost to the erosive power of time. After the gold boom, Windy Point became a ghost town and a place for tourists to come for scenic views. And now that is gone. Current mining operations have removed Windy Point from the landscape. These rare photos and essay will hopefully serve to coax Windy Point out of the shadows of history and back into the light. 

References and further reading

Cafky, M., 1955, Rails Around Gold Hill: Denver, Rocky Mountain Railroad Club, p 176. 

Carroll, F., 1916, Fourteenth Biennial Report Issued by the Bureau of Mines of the State of Colorado for the Years 1915 and 1916:  Denver, Eames Brothers State Printers, p. 43.

Collins, J. M., 2016, Lost Ghost Towns of Teller County: Charleston, History Press., p. 158-159.

Colorado Mountain History Collection, Lake County, Colorado website retrieved from https://www.facebook.com/cmhcleadvilleco/posts/ on November 3, 2020.

Colorado Springs Weekly Gazette, 1904, Five Feet of Ore: Colorado Springs Weekly Gazette, January 21, 1904, p. 9, col. 3.

Directory of the Cripple Creek Mining District for 1900, 1900, Cripple Creek, Cripple Creek District Directory Co, p. 508-509.

Jameson, E., 1998, All that Glitters: Class, Conflict, and Community in Cripple Creek: Chicago, University of Illinois Press, p. 218.

Munn, B., 1984, A Guide to the Mines of the Cripple Creek District: Colorado Springs, Century One Press.

Street Railway Journal, 1898, Interurban Railroading at Cripple Creek, Street Railway Journal, Vol 14, No. 11, p. 701-704.

Turner, G. K., 1907. The Actors and Victims in the Tragedies, McClure’s Magazine, Vol. 29, p. 526.

Acknowledgments

I thank Ben Elick for preparing and modifying the map used for this paper. I thank Shelly Veatch for reviewing the manuscript, and Dr. Bob Carnein for his valuable comments and important help in improving this paper.