Streets of gold in the Rockies

CRIPPLE CREEK, Colo. —  The gold mining town of Cripple Creek, on the western slope of Pikes Peak, has discovered a new pathway to riches: tourism.

The place where gold was discovered on the banks of Poverty Gulch now draws visitors who come to search for dreams, memories and melodrama.

St. Peter will just have to wait.

In Cripple Creek not a single soul is dying to get to heaven, not in a town where the streets already are paved with gold.

At 10,000 feet, spirited citizens insist that Cripple Creek is about as close to the Pearly Gates as a mortal is likely to get without expiring. This isn’t to say that every single street is paved with gold. Only those laid down by old-timers who were blazing their own personal paths to paradise.

Cripple Creek lays claim to being the “world’s greatest gold camp.” During its heyday 500 mines operated round-the-clock. Old-timers remind visitors how the surrounding hills turned up nearly $1 billion worth of gold during the late 1890s and the beginning of the 20th Century.

Indeed, streets were paved with the stuff. It bought booze and women along with misery and prosperity, and the Old Homestead was considered to be the grandest brothel in all the Rockies.

Dozens got rich while others died--and what with all the shoot-outs one of the town’s fattest cats was the undertaker. Cripple Creek ran on blood, whiskey and liquid gold.

After the first big strike in 1890, miners overran this town which slumbers on the western slope of Pikes Peak. Thousands joined the march after word spread of the big gold discovery on the banks of Poverty Gulch.

Camp followers joined prospectors and later the railroads joined Cripple Creek with the outside world. By the turn of the century 139 saloons were operating day and night. There were eight newspapers, more than 100 mining companies, 40 groceries, 15 hotels, a stock exchange and 25 schools.

As Cripple Creek outgrew itself a dozen other towns sprang up close by. The population hit 60,000. Homes were being built while new mines were being dug. With all the activity nearly 100 attorneys busied themselves handling the paperwork. Equally active were 88 doctors and dentists who stitched a constant parade of street-brawl victims.

Streetcars rattled through town and shoot-outs echoed along Meyers Avenue with its wall-to-wall lineup of brothels, bars and gambling dens.

Prayers were offered up for lost souls in 17 churches. When Carry Nation visited Cripple Creek she was appalled by the scene, calling it the wickedest city in the West. In her rage she chopped up Johnny Nolan’s saloon and gambling casino with an ax. Nolan called the law, Carry was arrested and later, after fretting, Nolan personally bailed her out of the slammer.

The town burned a couple of times. The first blaze was touched off when a dance-hall girl kicked over a kerosene lamp while battling with her boyfriend. Miners used dynamite in a vain attempt to stop the flames, but the inferno leveled 30 buildings, including churches, the bank and post office.

As Cripple Creek began rebuilding, a second fire destroyed the remainder of the town, causing a dozen deaths and scores of injuries. Flames failed, though, to destroy the dreams of Cripple Creek’s growing band of prospectors. Out of the ashes the Rocky Mountain mining town rose again.

Whiskey poured from new saloons and dice rattled in rebuilt gambling halls. Along with sin, Cripple Creek nurtured culture. Crowds gathered at the Butte Opera House to applaud stars who had traveled west to entertain at the top of the world.

By 1900 Cripple Creek was nearing its zenith. This was the year the earth surrendered $18 million worth of gold in a single 12-month span. During its spectacular rise Cripple Creek had become the fifth largest gold producer the world had ever known.

After the turn of the century, though, the town began slowly winding down. The government had frozen gold at $32 an ounce. With the closing of the mines, thousands rushed from the Rockies.

As the miners made their exodus, they left behind fewer than 600 residents. It was a boom town which had gone bust.

Abandoned homes began to sag on their foundations. Saloons shut their doors. Closed signs appeared on hotels. Window shutters banged during winter gales. Cripple Creek was nearly a ghost town when remaining residents, searching for a new industry, discovered tourism. Now from spring until fall, CrippleCreek comes alive and enough gold is mined from the pockets of tourists to tide everyone over when winter comes again.

Visitors crowd streets well into September. After that the scene is as peaceful as a Rocky Mountain sunrise. Barely an hour from Colorado Springs, the old mining town stands out like the setting for a TV western. Action during summertime revolves around the old Imperial Hotel where melodramas are staged in the Gold Bar Theater. With the final curtain, guests retire to the Red Rooster for another round of cheer. The proprietor displays the roulette wheel from the old Johnny Nolan saloon as well as a Hupfer-Zeitz grand piano that was built in Berlin on orders of the Kaiser.

The Thirst Parlour features a tin ceiling, a couple of ancient pianos and a bar put together with an abandoned oak door and a discarded pool table. Red flocked wallpaper frames pictures of early residents in the Carlton dining room where stained-glass doors swing open regularly, a reminder of days when the Imperial delivered guests to this grand old Victorian in a fleet of spiffy Pierce-Arrow limousines.

Guests at the Imperial sign the register at a desk which was snapped up during an auction at the First National Bank in Colorado Springs. Thirty-two rooms are up for grabs, ranging from old-fashioned singles (washbowl only) to family suites with private baths.

To reach Cripple Creek the faithful follow the all-weather highway from Colorado Springs, winding their way through Ute Pass and the hamlets at Woodland Park and Divide. Aspen trees line the roadway as it leads up almost to 10,000 feet. At this elevation both scenery and visitor can best be described with one word--breathless.

If one wishes, there is an alternate route via the Gold Camp Road which follows the old narrow-gauge line. The scenery boggles the mind. Teddy Roosevelt once remarked that it was a “trip that bankrupts the English language.”

From the top of Tenderfoot Hill, Cripple Creek slides slowly into view in the valley below. In Cripple Creek, Groucho Marx once drove a grocery wagon while Tom Mix herded cattle. Bernard Baruch was employed as a telegrapher, Jack Dempsey fought his first fight in the Gold Coin Club and Lowell Thomas attended school in nearby Victor.

Cripple Creek was devoted to its citizens, both famous and infamous. When the town’s leading madam died, hundreds marched to the cemetery while the Elks Band played a rollicking finale. No millionaire ever had a finer farewell.

During summertime antique and novelty shops do a rip-roaring business in Cripple Creek. Visitors pan for gold at the outdoor beer garden called Strike It Rich. Next door Gold of Cripple Creek displays a 24-karat gold-plated Kawasaki motorcycle priced at $250,000 as well as a pair of alligator cowboy boots studded with nuggets which the owner says is a giveaway at $100,000. The same gent showcases an immense nugget valued at $250,000 that was discovered, not in Colorado, but along the North Fork of the American River in California’s Mother Lode Country.

A plaque outside the community’s mining/historical museum proclaims Cripple Creek as a National Historic Landmark. Crowded into a dozen rooms are displays reflecting the town’s rip-roaring past.

Narrow-Gauge Railroad

Visitors take a 45-minute spin on Cripple Creek’s narrow-gauge railroad and descend 1,000 feet into the spooky old Mollie Kathleen gold mine to study stopes, winzes, crosscuts and drifts, after which free ore samples are given to each adventurer.

A couple of blocks away the Rockies’ Old Homestead brothel lures the curious inside parlors papered with treasures from Europe and spotlighting mannequins dressed in the same Parisian gowns and Leghorn hats worn by the beauties who traded their favors for gold. Indeed, some insist that the Old Homestead produced more gold than all the mines combined.

Life-size John Wayne posters are displayed in a shop on Bennett Avenue called the Little Lode, dulcimers are sold at Cripple Creek Dry Goods and the Sarsaparilla Saloon turns out Pikes Peak sundaes, Mother Lode banana splits and “two-mile high” cones. Across the street at the Bonanza Burger visitors load up on old-fashioned rock candy, licorice whips, hot dogs steamed in beer, and buffalo burgers.

The Old Hospital

The Imperial Hotel operates an annex at the west end of B Street called Hospitality House, which in fact is the old Teller County Hospital. Instead of numbers, rooms are given an assortment of medically related names--Maternity, Convalescent, Recovery and Emergency. I spent the night in Intensive Care, which featured a king-size bed and private bath for a mere 35 bucks.

Downtown at the Palace, where 20 Victorian rooms are priced from $23 to $35, only one comes with a private bath. The others resembled something Gary Cooper might have slept in while filming “High Noon.”

On the other hand, whoever heard of candy kisses gracing a gunslinger’s pillow?