When gambling was legalized in Cripple Creek, Colorado,
there was a requirement that a certain amount of the original
buildings had to be left standing as those historic buildings
were transformed into casinos.

The clever developers got around this requirement by gutting the interiors
of the historic buildings and replacing those interiors with what are
essentialy buildings of steel-girder construction
- inside the walls of the original building.

The only thing original is the exterior brick frontage
which is now a veneer over the new construction.

This photo shows part of what used to be the
Red-Light district of Cripple Creek.

The entire city block now consists of a 3 story parking lot
with a façade of the original brick storefront.

It’s a façade
Sadly symbolic of our government which is being transformed
into a veneer of Constitutional Republic
stretched thin over an Oligarchic empire.