A tale of two cities.

• Author: Garnaas, Steven
• Position: Cripple Creek, Colorado

Cripple Creek's city fathers say they've written the ticket to economic renewal. Others aren't so sure they want to get on board.

Dale Weaver conceded that nine years of casino gambling have kept historic Cripple Creek from becoming just another Colorado ghost town

"But there's a downside to this whole gambling thing," said the 81-year-old mine tour guide. "Gambling almost destroyed the community. This was once a place where you could wave at everyone on the street when you passed them and they would recognize you. Gambling just killed that."

Casino gambling in Cripple Creek killed more than that. Cripple Creek and neighboring Victor have suffered a retail swoon, a fizzling casino economy and a troubled tourism promotion. It sounds like the kind of poisonous mess that would send sturdier economies than Cripple Greek-Victor's into the dumper.

Mayor Chip Page and the Cripple Creek City Council have thrown their weight behind a series of tourism projects aimed at igniting the city economy - and maybe spilling over to traditional rival Victor, too. Starting with something called the Main Street Program, the city fathers hope someday go on to cap the re-invention of Teller County with a mega-tourist draw called The World's Greatest Gold Camp.

If they succeed, it could create the first stable economy in Cripple Creek and Victor in living memory. So far, still early in the game, success has not come easily. Nor is everybody so sure the projects should succeed.

"The first phase was supposed to start this past year, but we trashed it so much and so many people were against it, they put it on hold," said Tim Braun, editor of the Gold Camp Journal weekly newspaper.

But even Braun agreed Cripple Creek needs some kind of plan. Gambling's speculative bubble was bound to deflate. Looking back, it also seems obvious that gaming would have some warped economic effects.

When limited stakes gambling began in Cripple Creek in 1991, storefront prices soared from as little as $10,000 to as much as a million dollars. Boom.

Gambling at first buoyed Cripple Creek and nearby Victor, but it also close to killed every other kind of business. "Shop after shop has closed," said Steph Hilllard, Cripple Creek Welcome Center coordinator and third-generation Victor resident. "Now there are five left."

Now casino gambling itself seems to be slowing dangerously: Cripple Creek celebrated a 45 percent annual increase in casino revenue in the boom's early years. By last year...