Cripple Creek
Cripple Creek, on the flanks of the Pikes Peak [massif], has produced more than $400,000,000 worth of gold. The Sangre de Cristo Mountains are visible in the distance beyond the Arkansas River valley. (Jack Rathbone photo)
In 1890, two sheepherders stumbled on some richly mineralized rocks near Cripple Creek. A boom developed immediately, for the rocks contained both gold and silver. Since then, the area has produced more than 2,000,000 ounces of silver and nearly 19,000,000 ounces of gold.
Cripple Creek has produced almost half of all the state’s gold and silver. The ores are located in or at the edge of a large mass of middle Tertiary volcanic rocks which form an elliptical basin or [caldera] several miles across. The caldera, surrounded by Precambrian [gneiss] and [granite] of the Pikes Peak [massif], was probably formed by collapse of a volcanic center that had erupted through the older rock. The collapse shattered the rocks around the basin margin, and subsequent volcanic activity introduced mineral-rich solutions into the many [faults] and fissures produced by the collapse. Tellurides of gold, silver, and copper, as well as [pyrite], [sphalerite], [galena], [tetrahedrite], and other minerals, are characteristic.