Cripple Creek District Museum (Midland Terminal Depot)

At the bottom of Tenderfoot Hill, this three-story depot welcomed as many as eight daily passenger trains until 1949. To fit its hilly site, the depot has two track-side stories and three stories on the town side. The stationmaster and his family lived on the top floor, while passengers, below, used separate men's and women's waiting rooms. Rough-faced sandstone walls rise to red pressed brick on the second and third stories. The town-side entrance is at the base of a square, off-center bay. On the track side, a round two-story bay wears a conical roof. Sandstone quoins and trim detail the depot, as do the round-arched entry and paired upper windows beneath brick dentils and corbeling. Decorative rafter ends and bracing under the gable ends and an open third-story balcony on the west facade lend a little airiness to this heavy building. Inside, golden oak staircases, wain-scoting, and trim are well preserved.

The depot reopened in 1953 as a museum with a good collection of photographs, mining equipment, furniture, household goods, and a model of the underground workings of the Cripple Creek District's Portland Mine. Just north of the museum, the relocated Bull Hill Station (c. 1895) has been converted to the ticket booth and gift shop for the 2-foot-gauge Cripple Creek and Victor Railroad (1967). This steam train goes halfway to Victor along the original Colorado Midland railroad bed. Passengers are treated to views of mine dumps, headframes, and the snowcapped Sangre de Cristo Range 60 miles to the southwest.