Horace Tabor and Baby Doe
Horace Tabor was a Vermont native and a dry goods salesman. Not a good businessman, Tabor went bankrupt in Kansas before coming to Colorado. Tabor and his wife set up store in the mining camps, selling gold pans, shovels, coffee, sugar ect. to the miners.
Already a failure as a businessman, Tabor complicated matters by trading for played out mine claims. When a miner decided to give up and return home, Tabor would trade him enough coffee, sugar, flour to get home in exchange for their gold and silver claims.
These claims were usually worthless and Tabor was no more a miner than a businessman and went bankrupt several more (some say as many as 6) times. Each time he went bankrupt he would move to a new town and restart.
Tabor and his wife arrived in Leadville, a silver camp rather than a gold camp, and once again set up a dry goods store and began trading for mine claims.
Silver mines, unlike gold mines, do not pull the raw metal from rock. Silver is normally found in its oxidized form as a black powder that must be smelted (melted and the carbon removed).
Horace Tabor traded enough supplies to get home for the claims of a pair of brothers who had given up. Several days later he went to the claim with a pick and shovel to prospect. Digging into the bank of a hill Tabor discovered a vein of solid silver. He named the mine the Matchless. Almost overnight Horace Tabor was a millionaire.
A poor dry goods businessman, Tabor was a very good mine owner. He used his money to buy more mines and a smelter so that he didn't need to pay for that service.
Tabor's one vice was Oysters. Every few weeks a rider would arrive from the gulf of Mexico with a bustle of oysters packed in ice. On those days the diner would close early and Horace Tabor would enjoy his oysters in privacy.
Enter Elizabeth McCourt, also known as Baby Doe. A divorcee, Baby Doe was young, beautiful,..... and a gold digger know to many of the miners. She would attach herself to a successful miner until his claim played out then move on to the next man. She set her sights on Horace Tabor.
Hearing that a rider had delivered oysters, she timed her meal at the diner so that she would still be eating when they were ejecting the rest of the miners for Tabors oyster dinner.
Seeing her "distress" at being ejected, Tabor invited her to share his oysters. He began an affair and eventually left his wife for Baby Doe. The miners were scandalized.
Keep in mind that miners in the teratories had only four pastimes besides work; drinking, gambling, whoring, and fighting. These were NOT Sunday school teachers.
Still, they were so so offended by Tabor leaving his wife for Baby Doe that they ran him out of town.
Tabor moved to Central City, at the time a serious challenger for the capitol of Colorado. Baby Doe was known in Central City also. The couple was promptly run out of town and settled in Denver.
After statehood, Tabor became the US Senator and married Baby Doe. At the wedding, Baby Doe wore a dress priced at $20K and a diamond tiara worth $100K. The wedding was performed in Washington, DC and attended by President Chester Arthur.
Tabor and Baby Doe returned to live in Denver as near Monarchs. Tabor built the Windsor Hotel on Larimer and 18th street. A scale replica of Windsor castle in England, the Tabors lived on the entire top floor of the hotel. Their suite included a bath tub that was reported to be 8 feet across, this in a time before running water could be pumped to the top floor. The hot water had to be carried up in buckets by the hotel staff.
Opera was the rage in Colorado during the 1880's. Tabor built opera houses for Denver Central City and Leadville (despite their having run the couple out of town). In Denver Tabor would go out of an evening for dinner at the best restaurant in town, Totoni's, then on to the opera, which did not start until the Tabors arrived.
The Downfall
In 1892 the federal government
demonitized silver, removing a tie between the price of silver and the value
of the US Dollar.
Almost overnight Horace Tabor is penniless. Almost all of his money had been tied to the mining and smelting of silver.
He lost the several hotels he owned, the opera houses, and office buildings. Out of gratitude, the city of Denver appointed him as postmaster, to run the post office he had paid for and a free room at the Windsor. His health declined rapidly and he lost the postmaster job and had to move to an unheated room in another hotel.
He caught pneumonia and died...in Baby Does arms. The gold digger who had left other men as soon as their money was gone stayed with Horace Tabor to the end. His dying words were "never give up the matchless".
Among the few things Tabor still had at his death was the claim to the matchless. Baby Doe Tabor moved back to Leadville and lived out her days in a tool shed on the property of the matchless. The people of Leadville supported her with food and clothing for thirty years. A young man delivering groceries entered the shack when she did not answer and found her frozen to death.
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