Pirate Gold Mining Co. - Extremely Rare Cripple Creek Mining Stock Certificate
Inv# MS2512 Stock
Stock printed by Pueblo Litho & Prt'g Co., Pueblo, Co. "Cripple Creek". The Pirate Gold Mining Company owned 45 acres of rich land only 3/4 of a mile from the Lincoln group of mines at Gillett. [Valley Falls Vindicator]
Gillett, Colorado (also spelled Gillette) is a ghost town located near Cripple Creek in Teller County, Colorado, United States. It is famous for being the site of the only bullfight ever held in the US.
Gillett was reportedly a family-friendly community and included several churches. The nearby mines contributed to the boom of the town. In May of 1896, Following a fire that destroyed their ballpark, the professional minor league baseball team from Cripple Creek that participated in the Colorado State League moved to Gillett. The team folded at the end of the month. In 1895, the only bullfight held in the US took place in Gillett. 50,000 people, some of them celebrities from the US and Mexico, attended. The bulls and bullfighters traveled to Gillett from Mexico; the trip possibly caused the bulls to become over tired and irritable. The bullfight soon turned into a riot. After the riot was quelled, the bulls were taken to slaughter, and their meat was given to the poor. During the first decade of the 1900s, the town began a slow decline and was completely or mostly abandoned by the 1940s. On June 16, 1965, a flash flood that delivered 14 inches of rain to the area between Pueblo and Denver flooded a small abandoned community dam above the valley where the town stood. The resulting flood washed away most of the town's ruins. The only remnants of the city are small parts of a church's walls (in the 1940s, only the roof had collapsed), located in what is now a hayfield to the west of the highway; the jail, located beside a few abandoned residential houses at a road bend; and a couple of fire hydrants. Gillett also has a small airstrip that runs parallel with highway 67. Soldiers stationed at nearby Fort Carson (Colorado Springs) used to land and subsequently conduct high altitude survival training from there. Oddly enough, during the time when cattle mutilations were the most prolific in the southwest and near the Cripple Creek area in 1976, a motorist managed to take a picture of an unmarked helicopter (unmarked helicopters were often seen before and after the mutilations) close to the Gillett airstrip.
The former site of Gillett rests in a valley beside a highway near Cripple Creek in Teller County, Colorado, United States. Very little of the town remains.
The historic City of Cripple Creek is the Statutory City that is the county seat of Teller County, Colorado, United States. The city population was 1,155 at the 2020 United States Census. Cripple Creek is a former gold mining camp located 20 miles (32 km) southwest of Colorado Springs near the base of Pikes Peak. The Cripple Creek Historic District, which received National Historic Landmark status in 1961, includes part or all of the city and the surrounding area. The city is now a part of the Colorado Springs, CO Metropolitan Statistical Area and the Front Range Urban Corridor.
For many years, Cripple Creek's high valley, at an elevation of 9,494 feet (2,894 m), was considered no more important than a cattle pasture. Many prospectors avoided the area after the Mount Pisgah hoax, a mini gold rush caused by salting (adding gold to worthless rock).
On 20 October, 1890, Robert Miller "Bob" Womack discovered a rich ore and the last great Colorado gold rush began. Thousands of prospectors flocked to the region, and before long Winfield Scott Stratton located the famous Independence lode, one of the largest gold strikes in history. In three years, the population increased from five hundred to ten thousand. Although $500 million worth of gold ore was dug from Cripple Creek, Womack died penniless on 10 August 1909.
In 1896, Cripple Creek suffered two disastrous fires. The first occurred on April 25, destroying half of the city, including much of the business district. Four days later, another fire destroyed much of the remaining half. The city was rebuilt in a period of a few months; most historic buildings today date back to 1896.
By 1900, Cripple Creek and its sister city, Victor, were substantial mining communities.
During the 1890s, many of the miners in the Cripple Creek area joined a miners' union, the Western Federation of Miners (WFM). A significant strike took place in 1894, marking one of the few times in history that a sitting governor called out the national guard to protect miners from anti-union violence by forces under the control of the mine owners. By 1903, the allegiance of the state government had shifted, and Governor James Peabody sent the Colorado National Guard into Cripple Creek with the goal of destroying union power in the gold camps. The WFM strike of 1903 and the governor's response precipitated the Colorado Labor Wars, a struggle that took many lives.
The 1904 silent film short, Tracked by Bloodhounds; or, A Lynching at Cripple Creek, directed by Harry Buckwalter, was filmed in the area.
Through 2005, the Cripple Creek district produced about 23.5 million troy ounces (979 1/6 troy tons; 731 metric tons) of gold. The underground mines are mostly idle, except for a few small operations. There are significant underground deposits remaining which may become feasible to mine in the future. Large scale open pit mining and cyanide heap leach extraction of near-surface ore material, left behind by the old time miners as low grade, has taken place since 1994 east of Cripple Creek, near its sister city of Victor, Colorado.
The current mining operation is conducted by Cripple Creek & Victor Gold Mining Company (CC&V), run currently by Newmont Mining. The mine operates 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Mine operations, maintenance, and processing departments work a rotating day/night schedule in 12-hour shifts.
With many empty storefronts and picturesque homes, Cripple Creek once drew interest as a ghost town. At one point, the population dropped to a few hundred, although Cripple Creek was never entirely deserted. In the 1970s and 1980s, travelers on photo safari might find themselves in a beautiful decaying historic town. A few restaurants and bars catered to tourists, who could pass weathered empty homes with lace curtains hanging in broken windows.
Colorado voters allowed Cripple Creek to establish legalized gambling in 1991. Cripple Creek is currently more of a gambling and tourist town than a ghost town. Casinos now occupy many historic buildings. Casino gambling has been successful in bringing revenue and vitality back into the area. It also provides funding for the State Historical Fund, administered by the Colorado Office of Archaeology and Historic Preservation. In 2012, Colorado casinos produced over $104 million in tax revenue for these programs.
A stock certificate is issued by businesses, usually companies. A stock is part of the permanent finance of a business. Normally, they are never repaid, and the investor can recover his/her money only by selling to another investor. Most stocks, or also called shares, earn dividends, at the business's discretion, depending on how well it has traded. A stockholder or shareholder is a part-owner of the business that issued the stock certificates.
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