9. Cripple Creek District Museum (Cripple Creek, Colorado)
Hats off to this museum for acquiring two historic cabins, one from the gold mining town of Cripple Creek and the other—a former home of retired prostitute “French” Blanche LeCoq—from the ghost town of Midway. Miners working in the Cripple Creek mining district passed through Midway (hence the name), stopped in at its watering hole and some, obviously, visited the local soiled doves. LeCoq’s cabin was probably built between 1896 and 1900. The other cabin is “one of only about five surviving original log cabins in town,” museum director Jan Collins says. The project was two years in the making, with the cabins finally moved to the museum grounds in September. Plans call for the cabins to be furnished as they would have looked during their heydays. The museum’s portrayal of the last great Colorado gold rush in 1890 just gets better and better.
719-689-2634 Cripple-Creek.org
Related Articles
-
In large and small institutions, curators create magic through creativity and imagination in the West’s…
-
More than 500 handcrafted items—furniture, tablewear, leatherwork, jewelry, clothing and custom saddles—that embody the spirit…
-
Hollywood and Western mythology seemed to strike a chord with Western art museums and their…
