CRIPPLE CREEK, a city near the centre of Colorado, U.S.A., in a granite pocket 9,600ft. above sea-level; the county seat of Teller county and the heart of one of the greatest gold producing districts of the world. It is connected with Colorado Springs by the tortuous Midland Terminal railway. The popu lation in 1930 was 1,427. Gold was discovered in Poverty Gulch, just south-east of the present city, late in 1890 by Bob Womack, a cowpuncher, who died poor; and the Independence vein, on what is now the site of Victor, was struck on July 4, 1891, by W. S. Stratton, a contracting carpenter, who left a fortune of $20,000,000. Before the spring of 1892 the hills swarmed with prospectors. The railway to Colorado Springs was completed Dec. 16, 1893; the Florence and Cripple Creek railroad was opened the following July. Yellow-pine shelters, saloons, dance halls and gaming houses sprang up. Violence and primitive emo tions ruled. Twice the town was almost destroyed by fire, after which it was rebuilt of stone and brick. In 1894 and again in 1903-04 there were serious strikes, attended by violence and loss of life. A third railway, the Short Line, was built into the district in 1901. The gold output in 1891 was valued at $1,930; in 1892 at $557,851; in 1893 at $2,025,518; and it increased each year until 5900, when the peak was reached, at $18,199,736. In recent years it has averaged about $5,000,000. Many of the mines are still far from exhausted, and new ore bodies are discovered from time to time. The town, however, is but a shell and shadow of what it was in the boom period. In 1900 its population was 10,147; in 1910, 6,206; and in 1920, 2,325. Two railways have been abandoned; dwellings and stores are deserted and falling into ruin; parties of sightseers are conducted through bonanza mines; and the most famous saloon has become a rest-room for tourists.