CRIPPLE

CREEK  , a city and the county-seat of Teller county, almost at the geographical centre of Colorado, U.S.A., one of the phenomenal mining camps of the West . Pop . (1900)10,147 (1408 foreign-born); (1910) 6206 . The city is served by three railways—the Colorado Springs & Cripple Creek District (a branch of the Colorado & Southern), the Midland Terminal (which connects at Divide, 30 M. distant by rail, with the Colorado Midland), and the Florence & Cripple Creek . Cripple Creek is situated on a mountain slope in a pocket amid the ranges, about 9600 ft. above the sea at the head of the stream after which it is named . The municipal water-supply is drawn from Pike's Peak, ro m. distant . The interest of the city is in its extraordinary mines and their history . Cripple Creek's site was frequently prospected after 1860, and " colours " and gold " float " were always found, but not until February 1891 was the source discovered . Cripple Creek was at that time a cattle range . In 1891 the output of gold in the district was valued at $449, in 1892 at $583,010, and in the next three years at $2,010,367, $2,908,702 and $6,879,137 respectively . From 1891 to 1906 the total production of gold was valued at $168,584,331; in 19051 the product of gold was valued at $15,411,724, the total for the whole state being valued at $25,023,973; in 1906 the output for the district was valued at $14,253,245, out of $23,210;629 for the entire state . The development of the camp into a yellow-pine town and then into something more like a substantial city was marvellously rapid .

The first railway was completed in 1894 . In the same

year a great strike—one of the most famous in American industrial history—threatening civil war, temporarily closed the mines; in 1896 fire almost destroyed the city; in 1903–1904 a second strike, lasting more than a year and greater than the first, occurred . The first strike, which was for an eight-hour day and $3.00 wage, was won by the miners . The second, for the recognition outright of the union organization of the miners, secured only a reaffirmation of the former conditions . The ores are almost exclusively gold, tellurides being the most characteristic form, and occur in fissure veins . Outcroppings were very rare, as the veins were covered with loose wash, and this accounted for the late opening of the field . The field covers a district about 8X 10 m . Some peculiarities of the ores have required the use of new methods in their treatment, and in general the development of mining methods and machinery is of a wonderful character . The whole surrounding country is seamed with miles of tunnels in granite, and the hillsides are dotted everywhere with enormous dumps . The most famous mines have been the " Independence " (189') and the " Port-land " (1892) . The latter had in 1904 more than 25 M. of workings above the Iroo-ft. level . In 1903 the El Paso drain was completed, to unwater the western half of the field to the 88o-ft. level, greatly increasing many mine values and outputs; in 1906 the work of drainage was again taken up, and work on a long bore was begun in May 1907 .

There are smelters and

cyanide extracters in the district, but the bulk of the ore product is shipped to other places for treatment . Among the towns around Cripple Creek in the same mining district is Victor, pop . (1910) 3162, incorporated in 1894, chartered as a city in 1898 . See W . Lindgren and F . L . Ransome, Geology and Gold Deposits of the Cripple Creek District, Colorado, with maps (Washington, 1906), being Professional Paper No . 54 of the United States Geological Survey; and Benjamin McKie Rastall, The Labor History of the Cripple Creek District; A Study in Industrial Evolution (Madison, Wis., 1908), a full account of the strikes of 1894 and of 1903–1904 .