JULY 2022
PHANTOM CANYON TUNNEL I told you last month that I would tell you some stories this month - and so I will! The Phantom Canyon road was originally the Florence & Cripple Creek railroad and connected Victor, CO with Florence, CO. Cripple Creek is a town about 6 miles from Victor , and in the 1890's gold was discovered there. Soon gold was being mined all over the area, and the population of Cripple Creek was some 30,000; Victor somewhat less. (Compare that to the 1950's when the populations were around 600 and 300, respectively!) Thousands of prospectors arrived between 1890-1910 and the area became the "World's Greatest Gold Camp". Over 22,400,000 oz of gold was extracted from over 500 mines in the Cripple Creek and Victor region. The Florence & Cripple Creek rail road was built in 1894 to haul the gold ore from Cripple Creek down to the main east/west railroad at Florence. There are two tunnels such as the one a...