Cripple Creek District Museum

Two catastrophic fires in 1896 burned most of Cripple Creek to the ground, killing dozens in the most economically productive gold district in Colorado history. The rebuilt town's historic district sits atop layers of ash and grief. The museum — housed in the original Midland Terminal Railroad Depot — records apparitions of miners in work clothes, a woman in Victorian dress who appears near the ticket window at closing time, and the smell of burning wood on the first floor regardless of season.