Victor
The City Of Mines The Working Half Of The Cripple Creek Gold District, At 9,708 Feet. A National Historic District Whose Streets Were Surfaced With Low Grade Ore And Whose Buildings Were Raised From Gold Bearing Rock, With The Largest Active Gold Mine In Colorado Still Working Around It. · Victor, Colorado
Victor was where the men who dug the gold lived, while Cripple Creek six miles away was where the money went. The difference still shows. At 9,708 feet it is higher, colder and far emptier than its neighbour, with brick fronts along Victor Avenue that nobody restored for casinos because gambling never came here. The local boast is that the streets were surfaced with low-grade ore and the buildings raised from gold-bearing rock - which was true enough that assays were taken from the pavement. Lowell Thomas, the broadcaster who made Lawrence of Arabia famous, grew up here and his museum is on the main street. Around the town the Cripple Creek and Victor mine, still the largest gold producer in Colorado, has reshaped whole hillsides, so the gold rush here is not past tense at all. What that leaves is a National Historic District nobody refitted for tourism, six miles and a world away from its neighbour, with headframes on the hills and a few hundred people living among them.
Victor Avenue, Victor, Colorado, 80860, United States
A year-round town of a few hundred people, six miles from Cripple Creek. Most attractions are seasonal, running roughly May to October - the Victor Lowell Thomas Museum and the mine tours in particular keep short summer hours and close in winter, when this is a very cold and very quiet place at 9,708 feet. There are no casinos. The Gold Belt Byway routes - Phantom Canyon and Shelf Road - are unpaved, seasonal and unsuitable for large vehicles.