Cripple Creek is a statutory city that is the county seat of Teller County, Colorado, United States. The city population was 1,155 at the 2020 United States Census. Cripple Creek is a former gold mining camp located 20 miles (32 km) southwest of Colorado Springs close the base of Pikes Peak. The Cripple Creek Historic District, which acknowledged National Historic Landmark status in 1961, includes allocation or everything of the city and the surrounding area. The city is now a portion of the Colorado Springs, CO Metropolitan Statistical Area and the Front Range Urban Corridor.

For many years, Cripple Creek’s high valley, at an height of 9,494 feet (2,894 m), was considered no more important than a cattle pasture. Many prospectors avoided the Place after the Mount Pisgah hoax, a mini gold hurry caused by salting (adding gold to directionless rock).

On 20 October, 1890, Robert Miller “Bob” Womack discovered a rich ore and the last great Colorado gold hurry began. By July 1891, a declare office was established. By November, hundreds of prospectors were camping in the area. Rather than investing in mines, Denver realtors Horace Bennett and Julius Myers sought large quantity by platting 80 acres of house for a townsite which they named Fremont. The town consisted of 30 platted blocks containing 766 lots. Each lot sold for $25 and $50 for corner lots. Within a year, the lots value increased and sold for at least $250 each. Months later, investors from Colorado Springs platted 140 acres close Fremont and called their town Hayden Placer. Bennett and Myers filed unorthodox plat near the Broken Box Ranch and named it Cripple Creek. The towns’ combined population sum 600-800 people by the fall of 1891. By 1892, the Cripple Creek Mining District herald had caught on and in June 1892, the pronounce office assigned the Cripple Creek read out to Fremont, Hayden Placer, and Cripple Creek and anything the settlements became known as one. From 1892, Bennett and Myers oversaw the Fremont Electric Light and Power Company. The district’s first telephone was standard in 1893. Thousands of prospectors flocked to the district, and since long Winfield Scott Stratton located the famous Independence lode, one of the largest gold strikes in history. In three years, the population increased from five hundred to ten thousand. The Palace Hotel and the Windsor Hotel were fittingly full that chairs were rented out to be slept upon for $1 a night. Although $500 million worth of gold ore was dug from Cripple Creek and exceeding 30 millionaires were produced previously its mining heyday, Womack was not in the middle of them. Having sold his claim for $500 and a act of whiskey, he died penniless upon 10 August 1909. By 1892, Cripple Creek was house to 5,000 people taking into consideration another 5,000 in the easy to use towns of Victor, Elton, Goldfield, Independence, Alton, and Strong. As people arrived, the marshal greeted them and confiscated their firearms, which were then sold in Denver to have the funds for the salary of the teachers of Cripple Creek.

In 1896, Cripple Creek suffered two disastrous fires. The first occurred on April 25 past flames resulting from a argument between a bartender, Otto Floto, and his dancehall girlfriend, Jennie Larue, on the second floor of the Central Dance Hall on Myers Avenue. Their wrestle resulted in an oil lamp mammal thrown setting fire to the curtains. The ember incinerated most buildings upon Myers Avenue in the past it was put out. Four days later, another blaze destroyed much of the remaining half. A chef at the Portland Hotel spilled a kettle of grease upon a warm stove, which caused blaze to travel from Myers to Bennet Avenue and burned 1/3 of Cripple Creek. The town was rebuilt using brick and bigger construction methods in a become old of a few months; most historic buildings today date incite to 1896.