Victor calls itself the City of Gold Mines, and one look at the headframes crowning the hills around town shows why. Perched at nearly 10,000 feet on the southwest side of Pikes Peak, this well-preserved gold rush town is a quieter, quirkier counterpart to neighboring Cripple Creek.

Victor boomed in the 1890s as part of the Cripple Creek & Victor Mining District, Colorado’s largest historic gold mining district and still a producing one today. Its turn-of-the-century brick downtown is a National Historic District, with faded painted advertisements on old walls and no stoplights, chain stores or traffic, as the town likes to point out. Journalist and world traveler Lowell Thomas grew up here, and the town museum bears his name.

The Victor Lowell Thomas Museum fills two floors of an original 1899 building with mining artifacts, themed rooms, an old-fashioned doctor’s office and Lowell Thomas memorabilia. In summer you can pan for real gold and gems out front, and the museum books the CC&V Mine Tours, which take visitors by van into the active open-pit gold mine above town ($15 per person, summer and fall). Then hit the Trails of Gold, a network of hiking and biking trails built by local groups and landowners that wind past the Independence, Vindicator, Theresa and American Eagles mines at 9,500 to 10,500 feet.

The American Eagles Overlook on Little Grouse Mountain Trail marks the mine that Winfield Scott Stratton bought in 1895; at 10,570 feet it was the highest mine in the district. Nearby hides Rita the Rock Planter, a giant recycled-wood troll by Danish artist Thomas Dambo, open dawn to dusk; colorful birdhouses mark the trails that lead to her. Insider tip: combine Victor with Cripple Creek, just 5 miles away, and drive part of the Gold Belt Byway, about 45 minutes from Colorado Springs.

The Victor Lowell Thomas Museum is open weekends from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. in November and on December weekends through January 2, 2027, weather allowing. Mine tours and gold panning are done for the season. The trails are open year-round from dawn to dusk, but there is no winter maintenance on the troll access road or trails, so bring traction. See victorcolorado.com for events.