Drag to turn the globe

Mines/United States

Cripple Creek mine

Cripple Creek mine, United States. Producing, underground, mining gold since 1890.

Why Cripple Creek is famous

Bob Womack found ore in Poverty Gulch in 1890. About 150 mines worked by 1894. The Cresson open pit, begun in 1995, was stated to produce more than 250,000 oz a year (undated).1,2

Story cards

Timeline

  1. 1890 to 1891Cripple Creek gold rush3

What kind of deposit

Epithermal vein (Creede type)

Cripple Creek today

Where gold is mined todayMining in United States

Where next

People

Discovered byMary Catherine (Mollie) GortnerThe woman who staked her own gold claim at Cripple Creek in 1891.4Worked hereWilliam D. HaywoodWestern Federation of Miners secretary arrested in the Steunenberg case.5Worked hereDaniel C. JacklingHe learned ore milling at Cripple Creek before taking on Bingham.6

Events

Led toCripple Creek gold rushRead what happened near Cripple Creek: Cripple Creek gold rush.1

Places

Located inCripple CreekCripple Creek sits at Cripple Creek.1

Deposit types

An example ofEpithermal vein (Creede type)Cripple Creek belongs to the epithermal vein family of deposits.7

Sources

  1. City history page City of Cripple Creek
  2. Wikidata entity Q117605
  3. Cripple Creek Colorado Encyclopedia
  4. 2024 Inductees from Mining's Past Mining Foundation of the Southwest
  5. Chronicling America research guide: the Haywood trial Library of Congress
  6. Hall of Fame: Daniel Jackling Mining Foundation of the Southwest
  7. Mineral Deposit Models (Bulletin 1693, Cox and Singer, eds., 1986) US Geological Survey

Pictures on this page: Bill haywood from langdon page243.png, Emma Florence Langdon (Public domain).

From the Prospector Trails mining history dataset: each fact links to the source it was checked against. Figures are as the source gives them, in the money of their day. Not investment advice.

Keep exploring

Stories with these minerals

The Super Pit gold mine at Kalgoorlie, Western Australia, at sunsetMining historyGold rushes, then and nowGold and lithium · WorldwideAn underground loader carrying a full bucket of rock through a dark mine roomEquipmentUnderground mining equipmentUnderground · FleetHistory of miningGold fever: the rushes that filled continents1848-1900Lessons from historyPrice shocks and the supply response1893-2025

All mining storiesThe world runs on rockAll mineralsMining by country

Cover photos from Wikimedia Commons: Super Pit, Kalgoorlie by Kgbo, CC BY-SA 4.0; Underground mining equipment by Kaupo Kikkas, CC BY-SA 4.0. Pictures: Gold prospectors constructing a long box with a filter for panning gold. Process print after H.M. Paget, 1899., Henry Marriott Paget (Public Domain Mark 1.0); Pangkalpinang. Mijn 3b. Een reeks koelies bezig met het transporteeren van grond, Europeana (Public Domain Mark 1.0).