It’s a party! A three-day shindig this weekend when the city of Victor shows off its sense of fun while highlighting the mining history of the gold rush. The longest continuous running festival in Colorado since 1895, Gold Rush Days includes a parade, vendors, games, a beer garden and burro races.

While the main event is July 18-20, before things heat up, the Victor Elks sponsor a talent show – anybody can enter – July 17 and a chili cookoff July 18 at the Victor Elks Club.

Along with the focus on mining, the event features kids’ games and a bounce house. There’s also miniature golf next to the historic Isis Theatre on 3rd Street.

“There’s something for pretty much everybody,” said Chris Bilardi, chair of the event committee.

To harken back to the good ol’ days, the festival offers old-fashioned mining games where competitors use hand tools to recreate what went on in the gold mines such as mucking and drilling holes.

For those attuned to turn-of-the-last-century history of Victor, there’s gold panning outside of the Victor Lowell Thomas Museum.

In a place of memories and stories, the Ag and Mining Museum preserves old mining equipment and for the event features blacksmith demonstrations.

For a peek at Victor’s heroes, firefighters with the volunteer fire department serve breakfast beginning at 7 a.m. Saturday and Sunday.

Gold Rush Days enhances the mood of the past with the no-gloves vintage baseball game. Throughout the event there’s live music everywhere.

“Ohmygosh! There’s so much,” Bilardi said.

The pack burro race on Sunday is the kicker where 35 burros run 7 1/2 miles from downtown and up the trail to Rita the Rock Planter and back.

“Sometimes the burros stop and graze,” he said. “The burros have a pack that carries a pick and a shovel. It’s amazing,”

And in a city known for its natural scenery, Gold Rush Days features an exhibit by local artist Rita Cirillo at the Twin Flame Gallery.

Wrapped in views of the Sangre de Cristos and a sweeping panorama of nature’s theatre, Cirillo paints. Perched high above the city, Cirillo creates scenes that tell stories of the West in oils.

Gatherings of Native Americans, portraits of rugged individuals and scenes of Western landscapes, Cirillo’s work is intended to spark the imagination.

Cirillo’s home is artistic, purple with bright green and white trim, perhaps a message about art in the mountains, where plein air painters come for the annual Victor Celebrates the Arts.

A former software engineer, Cirillo gave it all up to paint in Victor.

“I was taking classes and went to an artists’ workshop in France,” she said. “I wanted to see if I could paint 10 hours a day and not get exhausted.”

Over the years, she painted in a studio at the Cottonwood in Colorado Springs and displayed her work in the city’s galleries. She joined the Cripple Creek Art Alliance and for the past few weeks, has been hitting the canvas hard to prepare for the exhibit at the Twin Flame Gallery during Gold Rush Days.

The schedule of events is at victorgoldrushdays.com.