Cripple Creek, Colorado once held 50,000 gold chasers, now donkeys run the place

Cripple Creek’s wild past isn’t buried

You drive an hour west of Colorado Springs, climb to 9,494 feet, and land in a town that once held 50,000 people chasing gold.

Cripple Creek sits in a high valley on the western slope of Pikes Peak, and the brick buildings on Bennett Avenue look almost exactly like they did in 1896. About 1,100 people live here now.

Donkeys wander the main street in summer. A steam train runs through abandoned mines.

The gold rush ended, but the town kept going.

A rancher found gold where everyone said there wasn’t any

In October 1890, a rancher named Bob Womack pulled gold ore out of Poverty Gulch and set off the last great gold rush in Colorado.

Prospectors had written the area off for years after a scam called the Mount Pisgah hoax, where someone planted ore to fake a strike.

But Womack’s find was real, and by 1900, more than 50,000 people packed the mining district. The boom produced over 23 million ounces of gold and minted more than 30 millionaires.

Womack sold his claim for a few hundred dollars and died broke in 1909.

Two fires four days apart rebuilt the entire town

Bennett Avenue looks the way it does now because of a disaster.

In April 1896, two fires ripped through Cripple Creek just four days apart and leveled most of the original wooden buildings. The town went right back up, this time in brick and stone.

That decision is why the historic downtown still stands more than a century later.

You walk past those same storefronts today, and the surrounding hills are dotted with old mining structures, rolling meadows, pine and aspen forests, all framing a town that refused to disappear.

Free-roaming donkeys take over town every Memorial Day

Every Memorial Day, a herd of about 16 donkeys gets released from winter pasture and wanders freely through Cripple Creek until mid-October.

You might find them grazing near the football field, strolling along Bennett Avenue, or parked in someone’s front yard.

These donkeys trace their roots to the animals that hauled ore out of the mines during the gold rush.

A nonprofit called the Two Mile High Club has looked after them since 1931, raising money for their feed and care through events and donations.

Pack burro races headline a 90-year-old street festival

Donkey Derby Days takes over Bennett Avenue every late June, and it costs you nothing to show up. The festival has run since 1931, making it the longest-running event in Teller County.

The headline act is the pack burro race, where teams of two try to coax a donkey across the finish line first. You also get a parade, live music across several stages, a kids’ zone, and vendors lining the street.

The whole thing doubles as the Two Mile High Club’s biggest annual fundraiser for the donkeys.

A coal-fired steam train rolls past dozens of old mines

The Cripple Creek and Victor Narrow Gauge Railroad takes you on a 45-minute, four-mile ride through the heart of the old gold district.

Coal-fired steam engines pull open-air cars south out of town, past the old Midland Terminal rail yard, over a rebuilt trestle, and along the remains of dozens of mines on the way to Echo Valley.

The whole operation has been family-run since 1967, when Dr. John Birmingham founded it. His son Jim runs it now.

Trains leave from a 1894 depot at the head of Bennett Avenue, mid-May through early October.

Walk past a dozen abandoned gold mines near Victor

The Vindicator Valley Trail near Victor gives you a free, two-mile loop through the ruins of the Independence mining camp.

You follow a wide gravel path past skeletal wooden headframes, old ore houses, and crumbling foundations from the 1890s, with interpretive signs explaining each site.

The trail sits at about 10,000 feet and gains around 340 feet, so take it slow.

From the top of the valley, you can look down and see a modern gold mine still running, right next to the century-old ruins.

A 21-foot wooden troll guards an old mine hillside

Between Cripple Creek and Victor, a giant troll named Rita the Rock Planter kneels on a hillside near an abandoned mine.

Danish artist Thomas Dambo built it entirely from recycled wood in August 2023, with help from more than 100 volunteers.

The story goes that Rita woke from a long nap, found the hillside full of holes left by miners, and started patching them so nobody would get hurt.

You can reach her with a short quarter-mile walk from the parking area or hike the 1.9-mile Little Grouse Mountain Trail loop.

Victor was the working-class twin that built the mines

Six miles south of Cripple Creek, Victor earned the nickname “City of Gold Mines” during the boom. At its peak, nearly 18,000 people lived here alongside Victorian stone buildings, paved streets, and streetcars.

Today, the population is a fraction of that, but the historic downtown feels largely untouched. The Victor Lowell Thomas Museum covers the area’s mining history and local legends.

Victor also serves as your launching point for the Vindicator Valley Trail and the walk to Rita the Rock Planter, so plan to spend time in both towns.

Phantom Canyon Road follows an 1894 railroad up 4,000 feet

The Gold Belt Tour Scenic Byway links five historic towns across 131 miles and holds both Colorado and National Scenic Byway designations.

The showstopper is Phantom Canyon Road, a gravel route that traces the old Florence and Cripple Creek Railroad from 5,500 to 9,500 feet over about 30 miles.

You pass through hand-carved tunnels, cross old bridges, and wind through a narrow canyon where bighorn sheep sometimes appear on the rock walls.

Another leg, Shelf Road, follows a stagecoach route past red rock formations and a dinosaur fossil site. The full loop takes five to six hours.

Petrified redwoods and ancient tsetse flies sit 16 miles north

Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument protects one of the richest fossil deposits on Earth, just 16 miles north of Cripple Creek. More than 50,000 specimens from over 1,700 species date back 34 million years.

Massive petrified redwood stumps, some 14 feet wide, line the trails. One is a trio of trees that grew fused together, the only known petrified redwood trio anywhere.

The site also holds one of the world’s only fossil records of the tsetse fly, a species now found exclusively in equatorial Africa.

Aspen gold and ice sculptures keep the town alive year-round

Come late September, the mountains around Cripple Creek and Victor turn gold with aspen leaves, and the drives along Highway 67 and Teller County Road 1 rank among the best fall color routes in Colorado.

By February, Bennett Avenue becomes an open-air gallery during the Cripple Creek Ice Festival. Carvers compete head-to-head in a stadium-style setup, and many sculptures are built for kids to climb and touch.

The free Heritage Center on Highway 67 stays open year-round with three floors of mining, railroad, and natural history exhibits.

Visit Cripple Creek in Colorado’s high country

You can reach Cripple Creek by driving about 45 miles southwest of Colorado Springs on Highway 24 West to Divide, then south on Highway 67.

At 9,494 feet, the altitude hits some people hard, so drink water and dress in layers for weather that changes fast. The Heritage Center on Highway 67 is free and makes a good first stop.

The Mollie Kathleen Gold Mine is temporarily closed as of May 2026, so check the official website before you go. If you drive Phantom Canyon Road, skip vehicles over 25 feet or anything towing a trailer.

This article was created with AI assistance and human editing.

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