Cripple Creek Spookiness and Other Stuff

Yesterday was kind of awful, to be honest, and I didn't have a chance to do a blog post, so hopefully this makes up for it. In our leaf peeping adventure last Friday, my friend JB and I drove through Cripple Creek in search of Sunnyside Cemetery. I had forgotten that it's in Victor, so we were in the wrong town, but only about four or five miles separate Cripple Creek from Victor -- no big deal. Anyway, before leaving Cripple Creek we stopped for a couple of snapshots. This house sure had the Halloween thing going on! What fun!

By the way, you may have heard that tiny Cripple Creek was in the national news today, but not for a good reason, unfortunately. There was an elevator accident in the historic Mollie Kathleen mine, resulting in one fatality and almost two dozen people being trapped 1,000 feet below the surface for several hours. You can read about it here.

The cute house next door.

The even cuter house next door to the cute house next door.

Flintstonian

As you approach Cripple Creek on Highway 67 from the east, you'll  pass these odd figures. Most of them are clearly related to the old cartoon The Flintstones, dinosaurs and all, although there is also a Statue of Liberty and what looks maybe Santa Claus. Or possibly a yeti. (?) At any rate, I don't think I've ever bothered to stop my car and take pictures until now, although they've been there for years. They do sit on private property so I had to stand outside the fence to get these shots. To me, the Flintstones figures qualify as folk art I'd love to know who created them -- I've always found them charming!

Leaf Peeping

On Friday I went leaf peeping with my friend JB. First we hit up Mueller State Park, then we headed west on Highway 67 to Cripple Creek and Victor. The aspens were peaking and they looked magnificent! Here's what we saw.

The Myron Stratton Home (Part 1)

Winfield Scott Stratton was a well known Colorado Springs philanthropist who derived his great wealth from the gold rush. Early in his career, he was a carpenter earning $3 a day before striking it rich (very rich) in the Pikes Peak or Bust era of gold mining in Cripple Creek. Mr. Stratton generously deployed his newfound prosperity to help his community, donating land to the city and giving assistance to the poor. He originally created the Myron Stratton Home (named after his father) as a home and farm for the destitute. In his words, it was "a free home for poor persons who are without means of support and who are physically unable by reason of old age, youth, sickness or other infirmity to earn a livelihood." Over time it has evolved into a compound housing a consortium of non profit organizations that offer assistance to the poor and the elderly. It also provides housing for some lucky senior citizens, including my friend Sarah's grandmother, who is nearly a century old. I'll show you more of this beautiful campus tomorrow.

High Water Pressure

The old "Pikes Peak or bust!" saying has everything to do with Cripple Creek and Victor, two frontier towns up Ute Pass that went boom and bust in concert with the gold rush. But just because that era is long over it doesn't mean there isn't still gold in them thar hills. In fact, Victor still has a working gold mine and it looks nothing like the ones of yore. Mining is a dirty business. It leaves horrible scars and environmental damage behind and uses up resources like crazy. It ain't pretty. So here's the mine in Victor, and as you can see, they are using some mega powerful sprinklers to do I-don't-know-what. I think possibly it has to do with dust mitigation, since wind is always a problem around here.

The backlighting in this image makes it look quite dramatic. Tomorrow I'll show you the same subject but from the other side of the hill, and you'll understand what photographers mean when they say that lighting is everything.

Labor Day

Summer may be waning, but don't tell Mother Nature that. Labor Day was so hot that Pat and I decided to skip town and head for higher altitudes. We ended up at Cathedral Park by way of Cripple Creek and Victor. So pretty! Here's a shot of the little creek across the road from the rock formation. I'll show you more tomorrow.

Cathedral Park

Several miles northeast of Victor, on a washboard road, you'll find Cathedral Park. It's not easy to get to but it's worth the effort. The road is actually a former railroad route that connected Colorado Springs to Cripple Creek and Victor, as seen in THIS colorized photo from about 1901. What an absolutely beautiful spot. Colorado, we love you!

The conclusion of the last several posts that started with Phantom Canyon Road:  another old tunnel, and many more miles to go on a dusty washboard road before making it back to Colorado Springs. It was a great day!

Phantom Canyon Road (Part 1)

Pat and I took a drive down this scenic byway on July 29th, and I took a lot of pictures so I'll spread them out over several posts. Part of Colorado's Gold Belt Tour, this historic road follows a gold mining era railroad route between roughly Cañon City and Cripple Creek/Victor. We don't have a four wheel drive and did just fine, just be advised that it'll take you a while to get from one end of Phantom Canyon Road to the other; it's not a short drive but it's VERY scenic. There are a few old tunnels and bridges -- not to mention jaw dropping views -- that are worth getting out of the car for. Bring a camera!

More pictures tomorrow!

Skywatch Friday

The Colorado State Capitol building, seen from the 7th floor of the Denver Public Library. That's real gold on the dome, mined from Cripple Creek, about 45 minutes west of Colorado Springs.

For more Skywatch Friday pictures from bloggers everywhere, click HERE. Have a great weekend!

An afternoon in Victor (part 3)

One last image from our afternoon in Victor (see yesterday's and Saturday's posts for more). This is an old trolley car that sits in Victor's downtown, in front of a sports playing field. I never even knew that Victor had a trolley service back in the day. It's such a small town, after all. Perhaps the trolley went between Victor and nearby Cripple Creek. At any rate, it's nice that one of the cars survived all these years and is proudly on display. Since the face of Victor hasn't changed much at all over the last century, it fits right in.

Winfield Scott Stratton

This statue on the corner of Nevada and Pikes Peak depicts one of our city's most important early residents, Winfield Scott Stratton (apologies for the odd angle -- I shot this out my car window while waiting for the light to change!). No doubt countless people have rolled past Mr. Stratton's stern countenance without realizing who he was and what great contributions he made to Colorado Springs.

Originally from Indiana, Mr. Stratton moved here to pursue a career in carpentry but was soon swept up in the gold rush. After many years of prospecting for gold during summertime and working winters in the carpentry trade, he finally struck it rich on the south slope of Pikes Peak, near Victor and Cripple Creek. His discovery was christened the Independence Lode and it soon made Winfield Stratton a very wealthy man.

By all accounts Mr. Stratton was a generous and philanthropic soul. He donated important tracts of land to our city, including the block where City Hall sits. Our stately downtown post office, which is named after him, sits on a parcel acquired from Mr. Stratton at a fraction of its actual value; he also donated a large sum of money to the Colorado School of Mines in Golden, one of his alma maters. He bailed many a friend out of financial difficulty, and when Cripple Creek burned to the ground he provided assistance to the thousands left homeless. Mr. Stratton was especially generous to the poor elderly and children in our region, and for this he forever wins my heart. Upon his death in 1902, his millions went toward establishing the Myron Stratton Home, named after his father, which to this day fulfills his original mission of assisting "poor persons who are without means of support and who are physically unable by reason of old age, youth, sickness or other infirmity to earn a livelihood." More than a century after his death, Winfield Scott Stratton continues to give generously to our community. Bravo!

As they rode off into the sunset...

One last image from our little road trip to Cripple Creek and Victor. This was taken as we were heading home. In Colorado Springs we don't get very good sunsets because we're on the east side of the mountains and we're too close to them. So the sun usually just goes bloop, drops behind Pikes Peak and it's gone. Of course every now and then we get lucky, especially in the winter months, but in general we get pretty crappy sunsets. This means that whenever I do get to witness a wonderful sunset I have to take about a zillion pictures of it. Since Cripple Creek is on the west side of the mountains, they get to see this every day. Lucky devils!

Hey, there's a car on your house!

Cripple Creek is a gambling town now, rather than a gold mining town, although there is an active gold mine just outside city limits. It can be found about 30-40 minutes west of Colorado Springs, on the western flank of Pikes Peak. It's a funky little place full of old timey buildings, most of which have been restored and turned into casinos over the last 15 years. I remember that before the gambling boom many of those buildings held antique shops, and I used to love going there in the off season to shop for bargains. There's a little "strip" (nothing like Vegas though!), and at the top of the strip is a shiny new casino that's threatening to put all of the mom and pop ones out of business. Right around the corner from that casino is this little house, very representative of many domiciles in Cripple Creek except for the old hot rod that's sitting on its second story deck! Now how the heck did they get that car up there, and aren't they worried that it might roll off? As you can see, it's a very steep street!

I like Cripple Creek. It's kinda funky.

A real gold mining town

This is the town hall of Victor, Colorado, which sits on the western slope of Pikes Peak, about 30-40 minutes west of Colorado Springs. Victor has the look and feel of a ghost town on the surface, with fewer than 500 residents and many crumbling historic buildings. But it is in effect still a gold mining town, as the Cripple Creek and Victor Gold Mining Company (run under the ownership of AngloGold Ashanti, a global company) is just outside of town and actively mining for gold.

Victor was once a very bustling little city. At the end of the 19th century, gold was discovered in the region and over 12,000 prospectors descended on Victor and Cripple Creek. At its largest, Victor boasted several thousand residents and was the fifth largest city in Colorado. You can imagine the saloons, brothels, churches, mercantiles and the like, just like a western movie only for real. And it really still does look like that, there hasn't been any gentrification and all of the buildings are from that era (many of them are empty, but they are genuine turn of the century structures). The town actually burned to the ground in August of 1899 and was very quickly rebuilt -- in brick, just like the town hall you see here. Brick is a lot less flammable than wood! There was never a catastrophic fire like this in Colorado Springs, which is why there are very few brick buildings of that vintage in the Springs -- most of our gracious gingerbread Victorians still stand. But that is a subject for another post.

Victor's town hall, as you can see, has been restored and is still in use. Sadly, many other historic buildings in this charming town are in a grave state of disrepair and decay because the city lacks the funds to restore them. But it's a nice town to visit and to photograph. It has the patina and character that come from a lively history. You can learn more about this little gold mining town by clicking on this link: http://www.victorcolorado.com/

The curious steer

This steer was across the road from the abandoned gold mine in yesterday's post. He seemed very interested in what I was doing. I thought he was pretty cute until I realized that he was on this side of the fence, then I decided that he was just very large! For some reason the entire herd was outside the fence instead of inside. It didn't seem to matter much though. Mostly they were just happy to stand around and eat, except for this guy, who watched me intently as I photographed the mine.

By the way, his horn on the right was broken off around ear level. He looked a little lopsided without it so I borrowed a bit of his other horn and Photoshopped it onto the broken one. Now he looks much happier.

There's gold in them thar hills!

I told you I would eventually post a postcard moment! Just west of Colorado Springs sit a couple of gold mining towns, Cripple Creek and Victor. Gold was discovered in the Pikes Peak region at the end of the 19th century. That's where you get the saying "Pikes Peak or bust" -- thousands of prospectors came to Colorado at the turn of the century hoping to strike it rich. The towns of Cripple Creek and Victor, located on the western slope of Pikes Peak, were once bustling mining communities, but not so much anymore. Victor is effectively a ghost town now with fewer than 500 residents, and Cripple Creek is pretty much given over to casinos and tourism. There are abandoned mines like this all over the place in that area, but believe it or not there is also a functioning, modern gold mine operating right now in Cripple Creek. Of course it's nothing like this photo -- mines these days are more like multinational corporations using the latest scientific technology, so the good old days of "prospectin' fer gold" are long gone.

On October 24th Pat and I made a trip to the mine (the modern one, not this old abandoned one) and I got some scenic pictures. There were quite a few photogenic moments in the wonderful late afternoon light that day. I'll share more in the coming posts.