Cripple Creek
Bennett Avenue- 1896
Photos from www.photoswest.org
Step back in time - Cripple Creek, CO. The World's Greatest Gold Camp!Meet Bob Womack. On first appearance he seems
the typical turn-of-the-century cowboy.But this man made a discovery that changed history. In October 1890, he discovered
gold in Poverty Gulch (now Cripple Creek, Colorado),starting a rush that caught the attention of the world.
The ore Womack dug from the earth sent the fever through thousands of souls and has created a National Park Service
recognized National Historic District that draws tourists from around the world. Old mine shafts, head frames and cabins still
dot the landscape here in the high countrybehind Pikes Peak.
Today gold mining is still in full swing as the state's largest open pit and heap leach project takes shape between Cripple
Creek and Victor. Modern-day miners scoop ore-laden earth in gigantic trucks and haul it to the local gold processingplant, a
far cry from the pioneer ways of Womack's time. Despite his discovery,Womack died impoverished. But the gold rush he
started left a legacy that lives on today.
http://www.pikes-peak.com
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***** Cripple Creek ghost tour update*****
Rick Wood, the previous host of the Cripple Creek ghost tours, has moved out of
Cripple Creek and no longer offers the tours.
The Last Dollar Inn has been sold to new owners-- and they do NOT conduct the ghost
tours.
This is very sad indeed, as the Cripple Creek ghost tours were indeed one of my favorite.
However, on a good note.....guests can still stay at the haunted Last Dollar Inn B&B--which is continuing to operate as a bed
and breakfast and open to the public.
Here is their new website:
http://www.lastdollarinn.com/
Last Dollar Inn Bed & Breakfast
315 E. Carr Ave., Cripple Creek, CO 80813
719-689-9113 1-888-429-6700
reservations@lastdollarinn.com
Last Dollar Inn B&B
Newspaper Article from 1997
For those with a love of gambling and ghost tales, the Last Dollar Inn has a room with a view.
The Last Dollar Inn is the first bed and breakfast located in the center of Cripple Creek, near all of the gaming. The inn, which
opened last December in a house on 315 E. Carr Ave., took 16 months to refurbish. The old brownstone has six guest rooms,
each with a private bath.
Built in 1898, it is said to be one of the most haunted houses in town, according to its owner, Rick Wood.
"I tell people if they want to see something, they will. I don't want to scare people away," he said. But not to worry: Wood said
he hasn't seen any objects moving on their own.
The location has proven to be a gold mine of opportunity for the inn because many guests stumble across it while gambling.
"We get a lot of walk-ups, and the hotels refer people to us when they're booked, so it's great for us," Wood said.
He said the rebuilding took longer than planned because he and his wife, Janice, wanted to maintain the historical value of the
house.
"We wanted to make sure we kept as much of the original structure as possible," he said.
One thing they did do to make it easier was redesign part of the house to accommodate about 12 guests. "We added double
laundry rooms, big store rooms, and I have some commercial equipment in the kitchen. It makes things run a little smoother,"
Wood said.
Even though it took a lot of work to get it where they wanted it, Wood said he couldn't be happier.
"When we walked in, we knew right away it was the perfect location. We're real happy with what we've got," he said.
Source: Ghosts, gamblers attracted to new inn
Tanya Bell, Gazette Telegraph. Colorado Springs Gazette - Telegraph. Colorado Springs, Colo.: Jan 25, 1997. pg. D.1
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The Imperial Casino Hotel
~ and George, the permanent resident!
For extensive info on George the ghost, please check out Rich's fantastic website:
Click here!
***** (As featured in Jeff Belanger's book, "The World's Most Haunted Places," p. 61-67).
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Author Kathi Mac Iver- Ghost lectures!
Kathi Mac Iver, the author of: Living With Ghosts, Ghosts of Bennett Avenue, Haunted Inns, Gambling Ghosts,
Ghosts of the Mining District, Mount Pisgah: A Complete Guide to Cripple Creek's Historic Burial Grounds, A
Pictorial View of Mt. Pisgah, and more:
- Hosts excellent lectures on the hauntings and the sacred burial grounds of Cripple Creek!
Now available to: libraries, schools, historic societies and civic organizations.
To schedule this very special presentation with Kathi, contact her at: (719) 689-2141
E-mail: pkmacv@earthlink.net
You can purchase all of Kathi's books at the Cripple Creek District Museum gift shop. (719) 689-2634
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Mount Pisgah Cemetery Tours
Photo from www.ghostwalker.net
If you would like to tour the historic Mount Pisgah Cemetery, pick up a walking tour at the Cripple Creek Chamber of Commerce.
Call 719-689-3315 or 877-858-GOLD
****Also, the Gold Camp Victorian Society hosts an annual cemetery tour of Mount Pisgah Cemetery.
The Mount Pisgah cemetery tour in Cripple Creek was one of the first activities established, acting as a means to both educate
and raise funds for the group. Costumed re-enactors, speaking in first-person, depict the historical characters buried in the
cemetery. This event was, and continues to be well received by visitors.
September 15th, 2007
719-689-9795
http://www.goldcampvictoriansociety.org/
info@goldcampvictoriansociety.org
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DR. JEKYLL'S MEDICINE SHOW!
At the Butte Opera House ~ October 5-28, & Oct. 31, 2007
Mystery Makes Cripple Creek Debut Oct. 5, 2007!
A Cripple Creek Mystery Unfolds...The stage is set for Cripple Creek 1898...a time when the roughness of a new-born mining
town kept folks on edge. Enter a medicine show - a common means of bringing home cures and tonics to rural towns. A snake
oil salesman and his assistant, a doctor by profession, bring their wagon and wares to town in hopes of making their usual
bundle of money by swindling locals out of hard-earned dollars for bottles of “miracle cures”.
Dr. Jekyll has a better heart than his partner - he wants to develop a real cure and he only needs one more ingredient, will he
find it on the mountainsides of Cripple Creek? Testing his concoction, he ends up creating a monster - Edward Hyde, a
gambling, womanizing murderer whose personality comes to the forefront with the consumption of the new tonic. With a
monster on the loose, Jekyll has to get the upper hand, save the woman he loves and the town from Hyde’s rampages.
Written by Chris Sorensen, Dr. Jekyll’s Medicine Show is a brand new script for the Butte Theater stage and is the third
professional show brought to Cripple Creek by Thin Air Theatre Company. Some of the summer melodrama and Annie Get
Your Gun actors will perform in the show. Mel Moser will direct the show. Dr. Jekyll’s Medicine Show runs Oct. 5-28 and with a
special showing Oct. 31.
Show times are: Thursdays 7 p.m.; Fridays 7 p.m.; Saturdays 1& 7 p.m.; Sundays 1
p.m. Ticket prices are: $14 Adult / $12 Senior / $9 Children 12 & under / $11 groups of
20 plus. There is an additional 75-cent facility charge added to each ticket.
DR. JEKYLL'S MEDICINE SHOW Written by: Chris Sorensen Directed by: Mel Moser Oct 5 - Oct 31 Thursdays 7 p.m. Fridays 7
p.m. Saturdays 1& 7 p.m. Sundays 1 p.m. Ticket Prices: $14 Adult / $12 Senior / $9 Children 12 & under / $11 groups of 20+
Butte Opera House
139 E. Bennett Ave.
Cripple Creek, Colorado
Reservations:
719-689-2513
800-500-2513
http://thinairtheatre.com/drj.html
http://www.butteoperahouse.com/
For show & hotel packages visit: http://www.cripplecreekpackages.com/
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Palace Hotel & Casino
) {Womack's
172 East Bennett Avenue
1894
Photo from www.photoswest.org
*** Important note: The Palace Hotel (Casino) is CLOSED.
Womack's Casino has purchased the property but haven't made any structural changes to it yet.
The glorious and haunted old hotel has been boarded up for at least 2 years now (with the ghost of Miss Kitty inside.)
Bob Lays, co-owner of the Palace Hotel in Cripple Creek, had heard the stories of a ghost called Kitty Chambers. But it wasn't
until one night when he was shampooing the dining-room carpet at 3 a.m. that he encountered her.
The shampooer started acting up, so Lays turned it off to see what was wrong. He couldn't find the problem, but when he
started it again, it ran fine.
It was then he felt "a presence, someone else in the room, for about five minutes."
He shut off the machine and looked toward the door of the lobby.
"And there she was, a lady walking by ... in one of those old-fashioned white night gowns, with ruffles on the sleeves and at the
neck. Her hair was down, just straight."
He hadn't seen this guest before, but the way she was headed, she had either to walk up a creaky staircase or go out a heavy,
squeaky front door. There was no sound.
When Lays got the courage to enter the lobby, it was empty.
"She could have been a real person," he says. "I mean, you couldn't see through her or anything. I called 'hello,' but never got
an answer."
The encounter left him so shaken, he says he talked to the ghost out loud, while he finished shampooing the carpet.
"I said, 'I don't care if you want to show yourself once in a while, but could you not scare me like that again?'"
A woman from Cripple Creek told him she once saw the same figure in the window of room 3.
Other guests in the hotel have reported sighting the same elusive woman.
"I know they see her, because they supply details I haven't told anyone," Lay says.
A few years ago, when a local researcher found some history on the hotel, it was decided the wraith is not Kitty Chambers, a
rich and eccentric woman who lived in Cripple Creek for a while.
Rather, it's probably Mary Hedges, who ran the hotel from 1916 to 1918, he says he was told by a local historian.
But Kitty, or Mary, still makes her presence known. Frequently, she lights a candle on one of two tables in the dining room. Just
so they don't forget her.
Colorado Springs Gazette archive
For the story of an investigation of the Palace Hotel & Casino- check out:
http://www.sgha.net/co/palacehotel/palacehotel.html
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Private residence - 126 Aspen Street
{Private residence- please do not disturb}
The house sits on 10 lots and has a fantastic view of Cripple Creek and the Sangre de Cristo mountains. The two-bedroom
ranch has wood-burning stoves and an added attraction: His name is Ed. He's a ghost.
Ed opens kitchen drawers and shuts them. He hammers on the roof and plinks glasses together as if making an Irish toast.
"It would knock on the back door and I'd go to answer it and no one would be there," said June Sylvain, owner of the home.
"Then, instantly, it would knock on the front door and I'd be running back and forth. I'd say: `Ed, stop it!' And it would stop."
Sylvain and her husband, Russell Sylvain, moved out of the haunted house when gambling came to Cripple Creek.
They're asking $129,000 for the home at 126 Aspen St., which was built as a log cabin sometime in the late 1890s.
Realtors Jay and Enid Angello are advertising the property as a "Documented Haunted House."
The home has been featured in the book "Ghosts of Cripple Creek."
Apparently, the ghost was there long before Sylvain moved into the gray house with white trim in 1974.
"I was pretty open-minded when I moved in because the girls who were living there said, `There's a ghost in this house.' I said,
`Oh, yeah, sure.' "
It wasn't long before Sylvain started hearing things. But she passed them off as the wind blowing through the house or the
house creaking because it was old.
But the ghost was persistent. Things started to disappear - shirts, books, you name it. And then there was the footsteps.
Sylvain could hear them - heavy ones - stomping over the wooden dining room floor.
"I was never alone there," said Sylvain, who now lives in Paonia on the Western Slope. "I was never scared. It was almost like
there was someone living with me."
The poltergeist got the name "Ed" about 1976, when Sylvain's oldest son, Russell, and his former girlfriend took out the Ouija
board. It came up with "Ed" or "Ted O'Brien." The Ouija board also indicated that "Ed" was a philanderer who was killed by a
jealous husband - but that part has never been confirmed in any history book.
Years ago, there was a Cripple Creek resident named "Ted O'Brien," historical records show. He lived on Aspen Street - but
not in the house the Sylvains own. But he may have left something behind near the house.
Sylvain found a silver fork engraved with the letters "O'B" while digging for bottles in her yard in the late 1970s.
"We started calling him Ed," Sylvain said. "It's great to have that because when something disappeared, you could always
blame it on Ed. My husband's doing that here (in Paonia). I tell him, `You can't blame it on Ed.' "
Sylvain never actually saw an apparition while living in the house on the hill. But her son awoke from sleeping on the couch one
night and saw a man standing in the archway of the house, between the living room and the dining room. He had on a long
overcoat and a derby hat.
He was there for a second, then disappeared.
The family that lived in the house before the Sylvains had two young boys who saw a man dressed in a long overcoat and a
derby hat. The two lads would place a large rock in front of their bedroom door to keep the man with the funny hat out of their
room. The closest Sylvain ever got to "Ed" was the night she was in bed and felt a cold hand on her face. A few nights later,
her husband, Russell, whom she describes as a `nonbeliever,' felt the same sensation.
It seems even the family pets could feel "Ed." The dog would bark at the wall as if someone was standing there. The cats would
stare at something Sylvain could not see, and their fur would stand up and they'd become extremely agitated.
But no one was ever as agitated with "Ed" as the couple who came from Virginia to visit the Sylvains.
One of the visitors, an ex-Marine, was asleep one night in the Sylvain home. He woke up and, in a gruff voice, said: "Who was
rubbing my back?"
His wife, who had been asleep next to him, swore it wasn't her.
That's when Sylvain told the ex-Marine about "Ed," the friendly, mischievous ghost.
Next morning, the ex-Marine and his wife packed their bags and drove back to Virginia.
Source: Publication: The Gazette; Date:1995 Feb 06; Section:CITY/STATE; Page Number 2
Erin Emery; Gazette Telegraph
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Maggie - the ghost of Colorado Grande Casino
In the Fairley Bros. and Lampman Building
300 East Bennett Avenue
Cripple Creek, Colorado, 80813
(719) 689-3517
http://www.coloradogrande.com/
Tony_Baca@islecorp.com
This historic building was once a funeral parlor. Little café called “Maggie’s Restaurant.”
The ghost is named MAGGIE.
Security guards have reported seeing Maggie and a gentleman friend playing a slot machine after hours.
MAGGIE HAS BEEN TAPED BY THE SECURITY CAMERAS.
Mysteriously, the tapes have "vanished," just as Maggie does when the security guards run down to the casino
floor.
The tape was sent to Unsolved Mysteries- but then the show went off the air.
Does the Colorado Gaming Commission possibly have a copy of this tape.....?
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A ghost haunts the big brick building at Third and Bennett, says Katherine Hartz. Hartz owns Colorado's Own-Christmas Tree,
which occupies the building's first floor.
The ghost Hartz calls Maggie usually appears on the building's two top floors, which once housed medical offices and a
Masonic Lodge ballroom. Hartz first encountered Maggie in 1968 as she prepared to close up the building for the winter. Hartz
was walking down the second-floor hall when she heard the sound of high heels walking on the third floor. She started upstairs
to investigate.
The apparition appeared to be about 25 years old, and was dressed in turn-of-the-century Gibson Girl style. Her hair was piled
up on her head and she wore a white shirtwaist, a long cotton skirt and high-heeled boots.
Maggie greeted Katherine Hartz through mental telepathy; Hartz answered the same way.
Since then, Hartz has heard music, singing and dancing emanating from the old ballroom. Hartz says she has never felt
threatened by Maggie, adding that she plays a concertina, and sings in a beautiful Irish-accented sorpano voice.
"She's been around dozens of times; in fact, she's never gone away. She's always around here, even if you can't see her."
One telltale sign that Maggie has been in a particular area of the building recently is the scent of rose perfume, Hartz says. "My
ghost is a beautiful human being. There isn't any story. She's just a nice person. There are a lot of nice entities in our midst."
Gazette, The (Colorado Springs, CO)
October 27, 1991
Section: LIFESTYLE
Page: 1
GHOSTS OF THE GOLD CAMP
Friendly spirits from Cripple Creek's colorful past still stalk old haunts
Author: D'Arcy Fallon
Gazette Telegraph
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Lilly of Buffalo Billy’s Casino
Formerly the "Turf Club Room"- 1896
Photo from http://www.sgha.net/co/buffalobillys/Buffalo_Billys.html
(Southwest Ghost Hunter's Association)
239-243 E. Bennett Ave.
719-689-2142
Haunted by a young girl named Lilly. She draws on the walls at the top of the steps.
A female employee saw Lilly sitting on a stairstep. She said that her name was Lilly.
The employee asked her if she was lost- and the little girl replied that she was not lost- but that she lived there. When the
employee went to notify a security guard, they returned moments later to find the little girl gone.
Once, a tourist was playing a slot machine and lost track of her young daughter. She searched, and found her on the
staircase. When the mother asked her what she was doing up there, the little girl replied that she was just playing with Lilly.
SOURCE: Ghosts of Bennett Avenue- Cripple Creek, by Kathi Mac Iver, 2000
To read the investigation of the haunted Buffalo Billy's Casino by the Southwest Ghost Hunters Association - check
out:
http://www.sgha.net/co/buffalobillys/Buffalo_Billys.html
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The Hotel St. Nicholas
Spirits and Ghosts
Cripple Creek, with its wild and turbulent past, has a history of unexplained, supernatural occurrences that has led it to be
called "one of the most haunted towns in America". Maggie, who inhabits the top floor at the Colorado Grande Casino, may be
the best know of Cripple Creek’s ghostly residents, but many of the area’s turn-of-the-century businesses and homes have a
history of strange sights and sounds that offer no apparent rational explanation.
The Hotel St. Nicholas is no exception. Since its reopening in 1995, a number of unexplained events have happened at the
hotel, and it seems that at least two friendly, but mischievous spirits, call the hotel home.
One has been identified as Petey, who on some occasions has moved small items or hidden cigarettes in the bar. Petey is
believed to be the spirit of a young boy, possibly an orphan, who was cared for by the Sisters of Mercy in the St. Nicholas’ early
days. A second ghost, dressed as a miner, has been reportedly heard and seen walking down the back stairways. While these
two spirits seem to be the most common, an occasional report of other sightings or 'feelings' comes in from other areas of the
hotel. Regardless of the number, the St. Nicholas’ spirits seem to be a friendly and playful, if elusive group.
The Hotel St. Nicholas has hosted a number of ghost hunting groups. The Southwest Ghost Hunters Association has visited
and reported on the hotel a number of times.
http://www.hotelstnicholas.com/hsnwebhsnspirits.html
information@hotelstnicholas.com
The Hotel St. Nicholas
303 N. 3rd Street
P.O. Box 1459
Cripple Creek, Colorado 80813
Main Number: 719-689-0856
Toll Free Number: 888-786-4257
Directions From Denver, Colorado Springs, and Pueblo:
Take I-25 to Highway 24 West to Highway 67 South to Cripple Creek. Highway 67 turns into Bennett Street. Turn right at 3rd
Street. The Hotel St. Nicholas is on the left in two blocks.
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