Leadville is legendary for its triumphs and tragedies. In 1860, a group of prospectors discovered placer gold in what they optimistically named California Gulch. The camp they founded was also named in hopeful expectation: Oro City. The gulch gave up a few million dollars in gold before its placers played out and the people drifted away. In the late 1860s, a quartz lode was developed at the Printer Boy Mine, but again the excitement was short-lived.
In the summer of 1877, however, a real bonanza was discovered around the corner from Oro City. The strike was not gold, but silver. Leadville, named for the lead carbonate in which the ore was found, came to life two miles northwest of Oro City.
The first huge returns came from the Little Pittsburg Mine early in 1878. Its riches began the storied rise—and eventual fall—of one of Colorado’s most famous citizens: Horace Austin Warner Tabor.
Tabor and his wife, Augusta, arrived in Idaho Springs early in the rush to Clear Creek. While Tabor pursued placer deposits, Augusta opened a bakery. When they later moved to Buckskin Joe (a now-vanished community north of Fairplay), Tabor worked a claim but also opened a grocery store, and his wife operated their home as a boardinghouse. Eventually Horace became the postmaster of Buckskin Joe. The couple’s businesses, not their mining claims, paid their bills.
Later, they went to Oro City and then Leadville, where the Tabors again had a store. A highly respected citizen, Horace was elected Leadville’s first mayor. In addition to his official duties and his store, he also occasionally grubstaked prospectors.
Among the prospectors to whom Tabor gave supplies were George Hook and August Rische, who by sheer chance (legend says they selected where to dig because it was in the shade) found a silver vein that became the Little Pittsburg. Tabor’s share made him rich. From there, he seemed to make one uncanny financial investment after another until he was one of the West’s wealthiest multimillionaires. He lavishly spent vast sums and financed, among other projects, Leadville’s Tabor Grand Hotel and Tabor Opera House.
Elizabeth McCourt Doe was called “Baby Doe” by admiring miners in Black Hawk. A divorcée when she came to Leadville, she met Horace Tabor in an elegant restaurant. Their subsequent relationship, secret marriage, and his divorce from his faithful wife, Augusta, scandalized the Colorado social scene. (Augusta was given $300,000 in the divorce settlement—a paltry sum, as the Tabors were worth an estimated $9.4 million.)
A tour of Leadville’s Healy House, built in 1878, shows off its lovely furnishings. Also on the grounds is the Dexter Cabin Museum.
Leadville, Colorado & Southern Railroad
On Seventh Street east of Hemlock stands the historic Colorado & Southern railroad depot, now the departure point for a scenic rail ride. This train excursion promises that you “will experience the untamed wilderness” on a route that extends north from Leadville toward the huge mine at Climax on a two-and-a-half-hour trip. Much of that wilderness is at the beginning of your ride, where you go through thick stands of trees that keep you from seeing much of anything else. The most intriguing remnant along the way is an old water tower, and eventually you do have a wonderful view down to the valley (and highway) below. But those views, for me, did not justify the time or money spent on the excursion. I talked to several of my fellow passengers, and they expressed similar sentiments.
The train is diesel-powered, unlike most major tourist lines in Colorado. In the depot’s parking lot stands a beautiful 1906 locomotive that I would love to see pulling the train.
For truly spectacular scenery, I recommend taking the Route of the Silver Kings (described on page 55). Best of all, it’s free.
No doubt engine No. 641, a 1906 beauty, needed its massive snowplow to negotiate winter storms.
Tabor and Baby Doe lived in high style until overspending, ill-advised investments, and the 1893 Silver Crash brought them to financial ruin. They who had once reigned over Leadville left for the obscurity of Ward, a much smaller mining camp north of Central City. In 1898, Tabor was granted an appointment as Denver’s postmaster. He died, destitute, the following year.
Before he died, Tabor advised Baby Doe that whatever she did, she should hold onto a Leadville mine called the Matchless (named for a popular brand of chewing tobacco). He was convinced this mine, though worthless at the time, would eventually pay off and solve the couple’s financial woes. Baby Doe returned to Leadville, remembering her husband’s deathbed advice, and moved into a tiny shack at the deserted and rundown Matchless operation.
Baby Doe became a proud but pathetic figure in Leadville, “paying” for necessities with worthless promissory notes to sympathetic shopkeepers and refusing the charity offered by others. In March 1935, after a particularly heavy snowstorm, people grew concerned that they had not seen her. They found her frozen body, clad in rags, on the floor of her cabin.
Incidentally, Augusta Tabor, although bitter and hurt by her divorce, carefully invested her settlement. When she died in 1895 at the age of sixty-two, she left an estate of $1.5 million, making her one of Denver’s wealthiest women.
In its history, Colorado has produced more silver than any other state. Leadville alone was responsible for an astonishing one-third of that total, an estimated $113 million.
The Silver Crash of 1893 nearly doomed the city, but it hung on with the discovery of gold in the Little Jonny Mine in the 1890s. In 1901, lead and zinc production kept the town alive. During Prohibition, Leadville’s countless mineshafts hid stills that supplied liquor to Denver. During World War II, the construction of Camp Hale beyond Tennessee Pass created hundreds of jobs, and for a while Leadville’s hotels, boardinghouses, trailers, and even its former brothels were completely occupied. Later, molybdenum mining at nearby Climax helped the Leadville economy. Everything after 1893, however, has been stopgap. Leadville’s true glory days ended more than a century ago.
The Delaware Hotel Block was constructed in 1886 by Callaway brothers William, George, and John. Named for the brothers’ home state, the Delaware Hotel still receives guests.
WALKING AND DRIVING AROUND LEADVILLE
Leadville for years was a rather seedy place that tourists drove through en route to fashionable destinations such as Aspen and Vail. It has improved considerably, but Leadville retains just enough tarnish that it’s a delight to prowl around.
The visitors’ center, on Harrison Avenue at the north end of the business district, offers several brochures to help you enjoy Leadville. The nearby Heritage Museum, located in the 1904 Carnegie Library, is a good place to start a tour of the town because it has an easy-to-follow history of Leadville with a sequential display of dioramas, photographs, and text.
One block west of the museum is the old high school, now the Mining Museum Hall of Fame. Some fine displays include the Gold Rush Room, the Blacksmith Shop, and the “underground” mine tunnels.
A block north of the two museums is the lovely Healy House, an elaborate 1878 clapboard home complete with posh Victorian furniture and antique household items.
Many historic buildings stand along the highway that passes through Leadville. The road is called Harrison Avenue, named for founding father Edwin Harrison, president of a refining and smelting company.
The Tabor Opera House, located on Harrison near Third Street, is a building not to miss. Constructed in 1879 in a mere hundred days, it was set for demolition in 1955. It was saved when Florence Hollister and her daughter Evelyn Furman bought it and began preservation of the structure. Both have since died, but the restoration continues with an active preservation foundation.
The opera house, open daily except Sundays in the summer, is an enchanting place to visit as you explore the backstage, dressing rooms, and even the balcony. When you venture onto the stage, you will be standing where legendary performers such as Oscar Wilde, Harry Houdini, and John Philip Sousa once stood.
The Western Hardware Company is on the corner of Harrison and Fifth. Inside, you’ll find lots of antique items, including some mementos from Camp Hale. The antique storage bins and ornate display cases filled with old-time knickknacks are worth the visit. (Many items are not for sale, however.) Be sure to go upstairs to see where lodgers once lived and where more quirky merchandise is on display.
The east side of town contains several commercial and public buildings, including false-front stores on the northeast corner of Sixth and Poplar. At Seventh and Poplar is the Annunciation Catholic Church, constructed over a period of years beginning in 1879. Its off-center bell tower is said to have the highest spire in the country, beginning as it does at ten thousand feet elevation.
Another interesting building is the imposing 1879 hospital, located at Tenth and Hemlock, which was operated by the Sisters of Charity. It closed in the 1960s but has been remodeled into a condominium building.
If you are interested in the saga of the Tabors, the Matchless Mine, located about a mile east of town on Seventh, is an important stop. You can stand where the body of the penniless Baby Doe was found, still heeding her deceased husband’s advice to hold on to the Matchless. I found the experience quite moving. Baby Doe, incidentally, was not buried in Leadville but next to her husband in Denver.
To reach the cemeteries of Leadville, go west on Eighth from Harrison. Turn right at James, then left at the fork in the road. At Tenth and James, you will see the Evergreen Cemetery.
This cemetery, like most of the larger ones in the West, is sectioned off. A sign directs you to areas for Masons, Elks, Odd Fellows, the Ancient Order of United Workmen, and a poignant section called Baby Land.
To visit the St. Joseph Catholic Cemetery, drive west from Evergreen Cemetery on Tenth. Turn right at McWethy; the cemetery will be on your left.
Note: A quaint schoolhouse, the only historic remnant of Malta, is about four miles southwest of Leadville on U.S. Highway 24.
WHEN YOU GO
Leadville is 24 miles southwest of Interstate 70 on Colorado Highway 91. By paved road, Fairplay and Leadville are 66 miles apart via Colorado Highway 9, Interstate 70, and Highway 91.
In addition, two famous four-wheel-drive routes, over Mosquito Pass and Weston Pass, connect Fairplay and Leadville in far fewer miles. I have driven Weston Pass and ridden it on a mountain bike and know that it is for high-clearance motor vehicles only. Mosquito Pass, by reputation, is much more rugged. Inquire locally before attempting either pass.
The Route of the Silver Kings
A highly readable and informative brochure that is available at many locations in Leadville, but most assuredly at the visitors’ center, leads you on an almost eighteen-mile tour up into the mine-pocked hills that stoked the riches of Leadville. A passenger car will suffice for some of the tour, but if you want to get to the most dramatic places, you will need a high-clearance vehicle. My tour, complete with stops for photographs, took just under an hour and a half.
The tour begins on the south end of Leadville at Monroe Street, which, when I went, lacked a street sign. It is the turn to the east just before the main highway veers from north-south and heads west.
You’ll go up through California Gulch, where the first strikes were found, and into locales that once were vibrant communities: Oro City, Finn Town, Evansville, and Stumptown. The higher you climb, the more dramatic the views, culminating in an astonishing panorama at the Venir Shaft, which offers a view down to now-distant Leadville and across to Turquoise Lake and the Mount Massive Wilderness.
Venir Shaft.