Elks Lodge (Gold Mining Stock Exchange)

As if to reassure investors, this sturdy red brick and sandstone Romanesque Revival building radiates wealth and permanence. From a stone-arched, recessed entry a central bay rises above the sandstone cornice, dentils, and frieze to a prominent parapet. Ten years after it closed in 1903, the exchange became the Elks Club. The floor of the large, high-ceilinged exchange hall still contains electrical outlets for communications with exchanges in Colorado Springs, Denver, Chicago, and New York. The Elks maintain a bar, dining rooms, ballroom, and meeting rooms on the second floor and a grand hall and sleeping rooms on the third.

This stock exchange is a reminder that Cripple Creek was not a poor man's camp: mining by the 1890s had become big business, controlled largely by out-of-town capitalists, while the miners were reduced to $3-a-day drudgery. These economic circumstances are evident in the district's architecture, which is characterized by modest homes rather than mansions.