Cripple Creek

Don't let the cute old town look
fool you - these are casinos.

On our last full day in Colorado Springs, we had a relaxing morning.  I made bacon and eggs for breakfast.

We chose a road trip to Cripple Creek this morning.  The drive would take us through Manitou Springs and Colorado City, so we planned to stop there on the way back.



Cripple Creek is the site of many gold mines.  Back in the 1800's, a guy named Womack found gold there, and soon, thousands of people flocked to the area to stake their claim.  Today, it's the site of casinos, with different people hoping to strike it rich there.

There is a gold mine you can tour there, but it takes you 1,000 feet down a small mine shaft. Neither Jeff nor I thought that would be fun.  Instead, we headed to downtown Cripple Creek.

A

Old gold  mine

s we were going by an information booth to look for things to do, we saw a steam train loading behind it.  We got tickets to ride the train to see what we could see.  It was a short trip out to Anaconda, another gold mine town.  The conductor of the train told stories about the gold mines in the area and explained that some of the holes in the ground were initial tests by people looking to stake a claim.  They would dig a hole, take samples back to someone to test, and if any gold appeared in the sample, they would stake their claim there.

My favorite story was about two men who came out to Cripple Creek to join the gold rush.  They didn't know anything about mining, so the way they decided where to stake their claim was by one guy throwing his hat up in the air.  They staked their claim where the hat fell.  If you look in the picture to the left, you'll see a thin vertical shaft sticking up in the center of the picture.  That's their mine.  Eventually, their gold mine got them $10 million dollars.  Talk about luck...



Old Homestead



Every gold rush brought tiny cities to life.  Cripple Creek got so big, they had a entire street that made up their red light district.  One of the "Parlor Houses" still stands today.  It's called the Old Homestead, and you can tour it if you'd like.  Not wanting to have to explain what this type of establishment was to the kids, we passed on taking a tour.



After our train ride, we were hungry for lunch.  I asked for suggestions from the woman at the gift shop, and was surprised when she struggled to come up with an answer.  She finally suggested a place, and when we found it, it was three booths in front of a casino.  That's when we realized that the entire main street of Cripple Creek is basically a series of casinos designed to look as it did when Cripple Creek was a booming gold mine town.  

Abandoned gold mine in Victor



It became clear that we weren't going to find a good lunch place that wasn't in a casino, so we headed out of Cripple Creek toward Victor.  It's also an old gold mining town. On the way toward Victor, we found the road to the Eagles Landing Overlook and Jeff wanted to take it.  It's a graded dirt road that goes up to an overlook where you can look down into the gold mine.  For this mine, they basically took out the mountain, and then put the material in a wash with a chemical to get the gold out.  Then they take the leftover stone and pile it up.  The train conductor told us that last year, the mine made $40 million from their gold.  Not too shabby...



Eagle's Landing Gold Mine


As we got to the top of the road, there were dark clouds above us and some thunder rumbling. After the stern warnings on Pike's Peak about lightning strikes at tops of mountains, Jeff and Henry carefully climbed the last 30 stairs to look down at the mine. Ruth, our little meteorologist, and I stayed in the car. We did get a view down into the mine on the ride down.  It's huge!



For some reason, the road into Victor was closed.  There is a historical drive in the area called the Gold Rush Loop, and one of the stops was an abandoned Eagles Landing mines.  Henry and I got out and walked the trail by the buildings.  The whole area is dotted with them.  Either you see the shaft or a pile of rubble scattered all over the place.

Still hungry, we drove back toward Manitou Springs and went back to Rudy's for barbecue again.  It was just too good to pass up.  Then we walked around Manitou Springs for a bit to check out the shops and get ice cream. 

We spent the late evening at the campground.  Ruth came up with interview questions and videotaped interviews with everyone about their favorite parts of the trip.  We took a walk down to the creek at the campground.  Before bed, the kids watched Toy Story 2.