Editing Victor, Colorado (section)

===Gold discovery===
Victor was founded in 1891, shortly after [[W. S. Stratton|Winfield Scott Stratton]] discovered gold nearby. The town was named after the Victor Mine,<ref>{{cite web|url=  http://www.epodunk.com/cgi-bin/genInfo.php?locIndex=9725|title= Profile for Victor, Colorado, CO|publisher= ePodunk |access-date= September 22, 2012}}</ref> which may have been named for an early settler, Victor Adams. In 1892, Harry, Frank and Warren Woods founded the Mt. Rosa Mining, Milling and Land Company.<ref name="Victor History">{{cite web | url=http://www.victorcolorado.com/history.htm | title=History | publisher=Victor, Colorado | access-date=May 22, 2013}}</ref>{{#tag:ref|Harry and Frank Woods arrived in the Victor area in 1892 with their father Warren Woods. Warren, born in Ohio in 1834, "was the president of most of the Woods' enterprises." Frank managed the Woods Investment Company operations. Harry was a newspaper man before moving to Colorado; he was born in Illinois in 1859. In addition to the Gold Coin Mine and the Victor Bank Block, the Woods also owned or invested in the Pikes Peak Power Company, Golden Crescent Water and Light Company and the First National Bank of Victor. The power company sold power to Pueblo, Cripple Creek and Victor. In 1927, their "empire ended".<ref name="Victor History" />|group="nb"}} Battle Mountain, located just above Victor, had the largest, most prolific mines in the mining district and the town became known as the "City of Mines." Victor officially became a city on July 16, 1894.<ref name="Victor History" /> In 1894, the Woods brothers discovered gold when they began digging the foundation for a building, which resulted in the creation of the Gold Coin Mine. At that time, 8,000 people lived in Victor.<ref name="Victor History" />

The town boomed as the surrounding Cripple Creek mining district quickly became the most productive gold mining district in Colorado.<ref>{{ cite book | author=Mark W. Davis, Randall K. Streufert | year=1990 | title=Gold Occurrences of Colorado | publisher=Colorado Geological Survey, Resource Series 28 | page=28 }}</ref> Mines in Victor and Cripple Creek provided 21 million ounces of gold. In 2010, the value of the gold would have been more than $10 billion. The mining district, which hit its peak in 1900, became the 2nd largest gold district in the country's history.<ref name="Varney p. 63" />

Although Victor's fame was overshadowed by that of its neighbor, [[Cripple Creek, Colorado|Cripple Creek]], many of the best gold mines of the Cripple Creek district were located at Victor, including [[Stratton's Independence Mine and Mill]]<ref name="Victor History" /> and the Portland Mine. Half of Battle Mountain's gold was extracted by the Portland Mine, which was called the "Queen of the District". Heavyweight boxing champion [[Jack Dempsey|William Harrison "Jack" Dempsey]] was a mucker in the Portland Mine.<ref name="Varney p. 63" />

Mine owners and investors lived in Cripple Creek, while most of the miners for the districts' 500 mines lived in Victor.<ref name="Victor History" /><ref name="Varney p. 63">{{cite book|author=Philip Varney|title=Ghost Towns of the Mountain West: Your Guide to the Hidden History and Old West Haunts of Colorado, Wyoming, Idaho, Montana, Utah, and|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qtYK6OD3RX8C&pg=PA63|access-date=May 22, 2013|date=July 4, 2010|publisher=Voyageur Press|isbn=978-1-61060-090-3|page=63}}</ref>