Cripple Creek Historic District

{{short description|Historic district in Colorado, United States}}

{{Use American English|date=January 2025}}

{{Use mdy dates|date=August 2023}}

{{Infobox NRHP

| name = Cripple Creek Historic District

| nrhp_type = nhld

| nocat = yes

| image = Cripple Creek, Colorado, 1957, Kodachrome by Chalmers Butterfield.jpg

| caption = Cripple Creek, 1957

| location = Cripple Creek, Colorado

| coordinates = {{coord|38|45|7|N|105|10|31|W|display=inline,title}}

| locmapin = Colorado#USA

| area = {{convert|2300|acre|ha}}

| built = 1890

| architect =

| architecture =

| designated_nrhp_type = July 4, 1961{{cite web|url=http://tps.cr.nps.gov/nhl/detail.cfm?ResourceId=712&ResourceType=District|title=Cripple Creek Historic District|accessdate=2007-10-15|work=National Historic Landmark summary listing|publisher=National Park Service|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080104184926/http://tps.cr.nps.gov/nhl/detail.cfm?ResourceId=712&ResourceType=District|archive-date=2008-01-04|url-status=dead}}

| added = October 15, 1966{{NRISref|2007a}}

| refnum = 66000939

}}

Cripple Creek Historic District [http://www.rebelgraphics.org/wfmhall/history.html Victor and Cripple Creek History] is a historic district including Cripple Creek, Colorado, United States and is significant for its gold mining era history. It developed as a gold mining center beginning in 1890, with a number of buildings from that period surviving to this day. A majority of the business district as it exists today was rebuilt after two devastating fires in April 1896.{{cite web |last1=Kennedy |first1=Anna |title=Cripple Creek Fires of 1896 |url=https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/cripple-creek-fires-1896 |website=Colorado Encyclopedia |publisher=History Colorado |access-date=23 October 2024}} The mines in the area were among the most successful, producing millions of dollars of gold in the 1890s and supporting a population of 25,000 at its peak. It was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1961.{{Cite report|type=none|title=National Register of Historic Places Inventory-Nomination: Cripple Creek Historic District|url={{NHLS url|id=66000939}} |format=pdf|date=December 9, 1975 |author=Joseph Scott Mendinghall |publisher=National Park Service}} and {{NHLS url|id=66000939|title=Accompanying 7 photos, exteriors, from 1975.|photos=y}} {{small|(950 KB)}}

Many Cripple Creek buildings post-date the gold mining era. The district includes a number of structures that survive from that era:

• The Midland Terminal Depot
• Teller County Courthouse
• The Imperial Hotel
• The Old Homestead
• St. Paul's Catholic Church
• Mansard Roof House, on Warren Avenue
• The Teller County Hospital, a brick Greek Revival-style two-story building.

The boundary of the district is defined by high points around Cripple Creek to include the "natural setting reminiscent of the historic environment. Additionally, it encloses part of the extent of Poverty Gulch where some of the original ore discoveries were made as well as the County Hospital building which is located outside the town limits." (p. 10) It runs from the peak of Mineral Hill (elevation 10,255 feet) southwest to a peak (elevation 9,855 feet), then to northeast corner of Mount Pisgah cemetery, then south along the east border of the cemetery to its southeast corner, then southeast to the peak that is 1600 feet to the northwest of Signal Hill (at elevation 9731), then northeast to the summit of Globe Hill (elevation 10,436), then northwest to peak of Carbonate Hill (elevation 10,335), finally east back to the peak of Mineral Hill.

State Highway 67 is the principal road through the area.