Wicked Cripple Creek District: A Book Review

Wicked Cripple Creek District. By Jan MacKell Collins. History Press: Charleston, SC. 2024. 176 pages with black and white photographs. Paperback.

Book Review by Steven Wade Veatch

There are dozens upon dozens of histories written about Colorado’s most famous mining district, Cripple Creek. What sets MacKell Collins' Wicked Cripple Creek District apart from the others is that it pulls back the curtain on the scandalous and shadowy history of the district. Collins masterfully describes, in richly detailed storytelling, the Cripple Creek district’s wicked ways, recounting the lives of its infamous inhabitants: saloon keepers whose establishments pulsed with raucous music, miners whose days were filled with the clang of picks and the scent of dynamite, brothel madams whose hushed whispers held secrets, gamblers whose fortunes rose and fell with the roll of the dice, conmen whose slick words could charm any victim, and lawmen whose badges couldn’t always keep the peace in the ever-expanding gold rush of Cripple Creek and the other towns of the district.

The book examines Cripple Creek’s wild side and delves the district’s dark past, including crime, exploitation, and the hardships of living in a gold camp. Yet, the author also points out the tenacity and drive of those who came to Cripple Creek to pursue riches and independence. Balancing historical accuracy and storytelling skill, her writing creates an engaging book for everyone, from history enthusiasts to casual readers.

What sets this book apart is Collins' ability to weave a tapestry of little-known stories from this period. Using firsthand accounts, historical records, newspaper clippings, and historic photos she intensely portrays the district’s darker side. The bittersweet tales of hardship and loss woven into the author’s narratives are a poignant reminder of lives lived on the edge. She directly addresses the racy tales and complex lives of the women in the mining camps’ red-light districts.

Central to the Wicked Cripple Creek District’s appeal is its focus on the human stories that make up its historical foundation. A saloon in Cripple Creek was the scene of the town’s first murder in 1892—and this was only the town’s second year—when Charles Hudspeth, following an argument in the Iron Clad Dance Hall, took a shot at the bartender but missed, hitting the piano player instead, killing him. By then shadows clung to the corners of the district’s streets, whispering danger from dance halls, saloons, and the brothels that lined them.

More mayhem and murders followed. The Victor Hotel was the scene of a robbery in 1894, just months after it opened. The fatal shooting of railroad superintendent Richard Newell stemmed from a heated construction right-of-way dispute.

In 1896, a quarrel broke out between Otto Floto and Jennie Larue, a prostitute living in the cramped confines of a second-floor apartment in Cripple Creek’s Central Dance Hall. A fire broke out in their apartment, spread, and burned part of downtown Cripple Creek. Three years later (1899), Jennie Thompson was cleaning a garment with gasoline in the Victor shack she lived in. Her careless smoking ignited the fumes, resulting in a fire that ravaged a section of Victor.

Collins describes the sad story of Mexican Jennie and how her abusive blacksmith husband, Philip Roberts Jr., filled her life with the constant sounds of his rage, while he browbeat fear into her heart until she reached her breaking point. Then, on Christmas night, 1913, inside the walls of their Poverty Gulch shack, she shot Roberts dead. The cold steel of her gun was a stark contrast to the festive season. Collins includes a photograph of the quilt Jennie painstakingly sewed in prison—a visual autobiography stitched with love, loss, and hope; a testament to her spirit: each square a memory, each stitch a story.

A more unusual story recounts how the miner John McEachern plotted to defraud insurance companies and fake his own death in a mining accident. To perpetrate his scam, he used the corpse of Bob Speed (which would eventually be buried three times) as a substitute for his body.

Jan MacKell Collins has meticulously researched and vividly written this new account of the Cripple Creek mining district, bringing its wicked inhabitants to life and preserving their stories so that the reader can almost smell the perfume of the district’s love workers, see the gamblers’ sly faces as they bet, and hear the honkytonk saloon music play. Wicked Cripple Creek District is a must-read for anyone interested in Colorado mining history and the wicked side of a mining district. Collins brings to life the bright dance halls and shadowed alleyways, capturing the spirit of a time and place where fortunes were made and lives unraveled.

Rating: 4.8/5 prospector picks
 

A Moment in Time: A Giggey Family Photograph

By Steven Wade Veatch

The photo shown has outlived my ancestors and the location it depicts; people died, a town changed, and there is an empty spot on the street where my grandfather's cabin once stood—burned down in a fire several years ago. This memento of my ancestors is a way for me to preserve the threads of my family’s history in a freeze frame of a certain place and time. I am trying to preserve the stories these relatives told me. I don’t want the tales to die out.

A family and friends scene at the Giggey log cabin in Nederland, Colorado. Left to right: unknown boy, unknown girl in the lap of George Nelson Giggey, Roland Giggey with crutches and brace on his left leg, unknown woman, Mary Edna Giggey (“Babe”), and Mary Ella Giggey sitting in a rocking chair. The family dog is taking a nap. Photo circa 1916. Unknown photographer. 

A traveling photographer opened the shutter on this family moment around 1916 in Nederland, Colorado, a small mountain town in southwestern Boulder County. Times were difficult. World War I was raging in Europe. The Battle of Verdun had started, leading to an estimated 1 million casualties. The US would enter the war the following year.

In this photo, an unscripted moment in the lives of my grandfather, Roland Wallace Giggey, and his family is recorded on a sunny summer day. The group is in front of the Giggey log cabin, built by my great-grandfather (George Leon Giggey) with large timbers he had hauled down the mountains with his draft horses. In the photo, my grandfather is 13. He is sitting on the ground. A brace is on his leg; two crutches are next to him. My grandfather suffered from Perthes disease, a rare childhood condition that affects the hip. His brother, George Nelson Giggey, is 15 years old and sits to the left of my grandfather, holding a small child in his lap. On the far right, sitting in a rocking chair, is my great-grandmother, Mary Ella Giggey. Next to her, on the left, is my Aunt Babe (great-aunt), at 10 years old. The standing woman, the small child, and the boy on the far left are all unknown, their names lost to history. Mary Giggey’s three children, George, Roland, and Babe, grew up in Nederland.

As I hold the photograph, I look at it carefully and begin to recall some of the stories of these early pioneers of Colorado and how strong these people were.

Missing in the photograph is my great-grandfather, George Leon Giggey. He spent his teen years in the nearby mining camp of Caribou. He later moved to Nederland, where he raised his family and worked as a teamster hauling tungsten ore. On Saturday nights, he played the fiddle at Nederland’s rowdy dance hall.

Nederland processed silver ore from Caribou. After Caribou’s silver mines declined in production, prospectors discovered tungsten (used in steel production) nearby, and the old silver mill in Nederland was converted to process tungsten ore. By the time the photographer took this photo (1916), Nederland had a peak population of nearly 3,000 people.

One morning after breakfast at my grandfather’s summer home, when I was a teenager, an elderly Aunt Babe told me stories about growing up in the Nederland cabin. She was sitting on the couch in front of the fireplace. The morning sun streamed through the window, illuminating dancing dust particles in the air. Aunt Babe began by telling how the logs in the Nederland cabin were hand-hewn by my great-grandfather, and that the brittle log chinking fell out in places, leaving holes where the wind blew snow inside the cabin and onto her bed. She told me how the blizzards stormed in from the mountains and piled up snow outside half a window high during many of the snowstorms.

Aunt Babe said that, one afternoon, her two brothers chased her onto the porch and rubbed a jelly sandwich in her face. This made me realize the similarity of brothers and sisters tormenting each other in any era. I try so hard to remember her now; she comes into focus and then fades. I remember the morning when she told me these stories while she was putting up her hair for the day. She never cut her hair, and it reached the floor. She kept her hair up in a bun on her head. Later in life, she painted oil landscapes and portraits of family members.

I look at this old photograph again, and more stories from my grandfather growing up in Nederland tease my memory, and then they begin to unfold. The nearby Barker Reservoir was a place for Nederland’s children to play. In the winter, my grandfather and his brother rigged a sail onto their sled that caught the cold wintertime gales that pushed them over the wind-swept ice. The two boys used their mother’s bedsheets. During the summer, they floated little canoes they made from tree bark on small waves in the water. Every time I pass the Barker Reservoir, I think of my grandfather and his brother playing there.

To earn some money, my grandfather and his brother cut down aspen trees and hauled them into town, where they sold them as firewood to a baker. My grandfather said that one day, while hauling wood, they discovered a dynamite shed that was unlocked. The two boys grabbed a stick of dynamite and a fuse from the shed and then set it off in a clearing. No one ever found out that they were responsible for the explosion, and fortunately, they escaped serious injury but had trouble hearing for a few days.

The two brothers enjoyed exploring the forested areas surrounding the town. My grandfather, because of his leg brace and crutches, rode “Becky” the burro while his brother George walked. One afternoon, they encountered a well-dressed English prospector who lived in a canvas tent, half hidden in the pines. The tent was well furnished. There were maps and books on a table, kerosene lamps, and a rug covered most of the wooden floor. A pot-bellied stove provided heat. My grandfather and his brother returned several times to talk with the Englishman. One day, the Englishman was gone, never to be seen again.

My grandfather and his friends spent some time at the Tanner Brother’s grocery store looking at the merchandise. One day in 1910, while at the grocery store, they heard a commotion in the street. When they ran outside to investigate, they saw a Stanley Steamer car puffing up Main Street. No one had seen anything like it before.

Prosperity in Nederland brought the extraordinary N.M. “Fatty” Mills and his movie theater to Nederland. Fatty started his theater in a white frame building on Main Street in 1914. An artist painted beautiful mountain scenes on the walls on either side of the sloping theater floor. The theater was a busy place; Fatty ran two shows each night and two matinees each week. Fatty Mills, who weighed over 300 pounds and smoked a corncob pipe, was very popular with the local youngsters. My grandfather turned the crank on the old projector and received 5 cents for each show from Fatty. Mills remained in business until his death 20 years later.

Soon my Great-uncle George Nelson Giggey—the boy sitting with the child in his lap in the photo—would be gone. The scene in the photo shifts a few years to 1918, when George was 17 years old and came home one October day from work. He was not feeling well and sank into the couch with aches that felt like his bones were breaking. George never left the couch, and a bitter gloom filled the room as he died. He was a victim of the flu that would soon become the deadliest epidemic in human history. The thieving shadow of death was everywhere in the town at that time, forcing the townspeople to convert the Antlers Hotel into a hospital to help the stricken citizens of Nederland.

During a camping trip as a young adult with my grandfather, I remember him telling me, as he stared into the burning campfire, about the loss of his brother George. As his eyes misted, he said that he still carried with him in his wallet the money that was in his brother’s pocket when he died. Years later, he had his brother’s body exhumed from the Nederland Cemetery for interment in the Boulder Cemetery, next to his mother. My grandfather would later join them when he passed away. My grandfather was with his brother once again.

The death of George ripped the Giggey family apart. My grandfather, his sister, and his mother moved to Boulder, Colorado. My great-grandfather left for Dove Creek, in western Colorado, where he took up ranching and started a new family. This portion of family history was buried deeper than a mine shaft, and I will never know what really happened.

This photograph also helps me remember the stories and historical realities that sit outside the frame of the photograph I want to hear my grandfather’s and great-aunt Babe’s stories again. I did not know how important these stories would be for me when I first heard them. I wish I could go back in time and hear them one more time. The bits and pieces of the stories I remember help me understand who I am and how I fit into the world. And the stories put me next to them—listening once again to my grandfather and great-aunt.