Leadville

The American Guides Project

Railroad Stations: 13th and Poplar Sts., and at Malta, 4 miles SW. on US 24 (busses to Hotel Vendome), for Denver & Rio Grande Western.

LEADVILLE (10,192 alt., 3,771 pop.), magnificently situated high in the upper valley of the Arkansas, bears one of the great names in the mining annals of the world. First a fabulous gold camp, then one of the richest of silver camps, again a gold camp, it has also mined great quantities of lead, zinc, and manganese. Gold and silver are still mined, but the chief prop of the town's economic structure today is the world's largest molybdenum mine at Climax near by (see Tour lb). Leadville's population follows the curve of employment at Climax; when work is slack there, Leadville has almost the appearance, even on Saturday nights, of a quiet country town that has known no greater excitement than a dog fight.

Once the State's second largest city, Leadville has been called the "Cloud City," for it lies just below timberline, almost two miles above sea level. Snow is no rarity on the Fourth of July, and in winter the ground freezes so deep that grave diggers have to employ dynamite. The climate has been described as "ten months winter and two months mighty late in the fall." To the west, across a pine flat, threaded by the Arkansas River, loom Mount Massive and Mount Elbert, Colorado's two highest peaks, gigantic vertebrae in the backbone of the Continent. To the east rise the high Mosquitoes, which tumble down in rolling slopes to Carbonate, Iron, and Fryer Hills, on the outskirts of the camp, each a treasure house, long since stripped of trees and virtually disemboweled. Gray and yellow dumps from old mines bearing famous names once on every tongue, spill down into the town.

In its riotous youth Leadville proudly called itself the "Magic City," and well it might. Almost overnight a wild pine flat here was seething with some 30,000 excited fortune-hunters. Much of the old camp is gone. Vacant lots now gape where life was lustiest in the days from 1878 to 1880 when fortunes made in a day were squandered that night in saloons, dance houses, gambling halls, wine theaters, and brothels, both plain and fancy. For many years abandoned houses were purchased for a few dollars and chopped down for kindling wood; often those needing firewood dispensed with the formality of purchase.

Chestnut Street, now First Street, the original business thoroughfare, might be a country road. State Street, renamed Second Street, one block north, once a tumultuous half mile lighted by kerosene flares blazing before pleasure houses of all kinds, is now quiet and drab by day, but after dark it regains a measure of its gay and even lurid color. In a line of ramshackle cribs, green-painted cubicles extending from Harrison Avenue to the Pioneer Club, occupants sit at wide windows with hinged sections and call enticingly to passers-by; the unwary man who walks too close may have his hat snatched and have to go inside to regain it. Crib doors are padlocked on the outside during off hours.

The business district that once extended for blocks in all directions is now largely concentrated along Harrison Avenue, the main north-south thoroughfare, lined with low brick and frame structures, many in need of paint and repair. But in the better residential section west of Harrison Avenue, between 4th and 9th Streets, many small frame dwellings—their architecture reminiscent of the 1880's—have been refurbished; some have lawns, and a few poplars and conifers grow bravely before the houses. Wooden sidewalks, usually neglected as they fall into disrepair, still line some of Leadville's streets; along one side of Harrison Avenue the concrete sidewalk is three feet above street level, with steps for pedestrians at intersections. The streets along which rolled the glittering equipages of the Carbonate Kings are, for the most part, as rutty and dusty as when ore wagons lurched down them from mine to smelter.

The Leadville district, one of the most highly mineralized in the world, has produced gold, silver, lead, zinc, manganese, and molybdenum. Gold came first, early in 1860, when Abe Lee and other Georgians discovered in California Gulch, on the southern limits of the town, one of the State's richest placer diggings. In the summer of that year Oro City was founded, and within two months the gulch had a population of 5,000; two years later, when the gold sands had been exhausted, it was almost deserted. Decay continued until 1875 when "Uncle Billy" Stevens, a prospector from Minnesota, began reworking some of the abandoned claims and took in as a partner A. B. Wood, a trained metallurgist. The latter analyzed the heavy red sands that had long interfered with sluicing, and discovered them to be virtually pure carbonate of lead, with a high silver content. The two men worked quietly in tracing silver-lead lodes and staking out claims, one of which, the Iron Silver, later yielded twenty millions. Scant attention was paid to their activities until Wood sold his interests for $40,000 to Levi Leiter, partner of Marshall Field, the Chicago merchant.

The gulch instantly stirred with new life; old miners prospected north and west to make strikes on Iron and Carbonate Hills. Later, George Fryer opened a rich body of carbonate ore on the adjoining hill that now bears his name. Oro City, which had been moved up California Gulch, was moved back down again and merged with Slabtown as New Oro City. Here, in January 1878, the miners assembled to incorporate the camp as Leadville, with H. A. W. Tabor as mayor and postmaster; population was estimated at 200 persons.

While not altogether typical of the Carbonate Kings, as the local mining magnates came to be called, Tabor symbolizes Leadville's amazing history. The Vermont-born stonecutter, with his wife and small son, had come in the Pike's Peak gold rush early in 1859, and endured many years of hardships and privation as he drifted from field to field, following each new strike. In California Gulch in 1860 he washed out several thousand dollars' worth of "dust," but his claim was soon depleted. There followed a brief and luckless sojourn at Buckskin Joe, where his wife Augusta kept the family by taking in boarders. By the time of the silver discoveries Tabor was convinced that his luck had run out; he was keeping a small store and acting as postmaster at Oro City.

More to be rid of them than in any hope of profit, he grubstaked two German shoemakers, George Hook and Auguste Rische, who had drifted in from South Park. The men helped themselves to a jug of whisky without Tabor's knowledge, so the story goes, and sampled it appreciatively as they started off prospecting. Climbing a hill within a mile of camp, they set to work digging in the shade of a pine, for to them one spot looked as desirable as another. Almost at once they struck an exceptional silver lode later developed as the Little Pittsburg; according to a report of the United States Geological Survey, they made the strike at the only point on the hill where the vein came so near the surface.

Possessed of a third share in the find by reason of his $17 grubstake, Tabor developed "the Midas touch"; his luck, not long since at bottom, was soon the talk of the State and then of the entire country. Duped, Tabor bought a "salted" shaft, sent men to work it to the accompaniment of ribald merriment on the part of those in on the hoax, and promptly hit the great Chrysolite lode, one of the marvels of the district. Having realized $500,000 in dividends from the Little Pittsburg, he sold out within a year for $1,000,00 and invested his profits in even more remunerative enterprises—among others, in the immensely profitable Matchless Mine.

With a fortune estimated at more than $9,000,000, Tabor embarked upon a bizarre public career. He was elected lieutenant-governor of the State, gave generously to the campaigns of the Republican party, presented Leadville with a fire department, organized military companies, and built opera houses and imposing business buildings both here and in Denver. In only one respect was he disappointed. Anxious to become U. S. Senator from Colorado, he had to be satisfied with a thirty-day term, filling the vacancy created by the appointment of Senator Henry M. Teller as Secretary of the Interior in 1883. Divorcing his wife Augusta, whom he had married in Maine in 1857, he married Elizabeth McCourt ("Baby") Doe, a young and beautiful divorcee, to whom he had been attracted in Leadville days. President Arthur attended the lavish wedding party at the Willard Hotel, Washington.

Tabor's fall was as meteoric as his rise. With the collapse of silver prices and the panic of 1893 his over-extended financial empire quickly crumbled. The ruin was complete; virtually penniless, he was postmaster of Denver at his death on April 10, 1899. "Hold on to the Matchless," were his last instructions to Baby Doe, and this she did faithfully, living alone for many years in a rude shack beside the mine shaft, enduring abject poverty until her death in 1935.

In the boom years of the Carbonate Camp, as it was known from the nature of its ores, mines and smelters roared day and night ; sawmills droned in the hills; fresh yellow pine lumber was knocked together to create rows of cabins and stretches of sidewalks, no two on the same level. The camp was a wilderness of "tents, wigwams of boughs and bare poles . . . cabins wedged between stumps; cabins built on stumps; cabins half roofed . . . with sailcloth roofs, and no roofs at all. . . . All faces looked restless, eager, fierce." From the mines on almost inaccessible hillsides, hundreds of heavy ore wagons clattered down steep makeshift roads and rumbled through town to the smelters. Whole pine forests were cut down, converted into charcoal, and consumed by smelters and ore-reduction plants, for coal and coke were too expensive for use even when available, which they usually were not.

Through the streets of the raw town surged a cosmopolitan and unruly population lured from all points of the compass. Miners, teamsters, and smelter hands brawled and squandered their earnings on liquor, women, or cards in smoky, noisy gambling halls, while upstairs in luxuriously furnished apartments the mining kings played for such high stakes that $I,000 often changed hands on the turn of a card. Rich and poor alike held to the old gambler's adage, "The only thing sure about luck is that it's bound to change."

As one rich strike followed another, an army of newcomers descended upon the roaring camp by stage lines, in freight wagons, and on foot—men and women of all ages, all professions, and, it is said, of all races except Indian and Chinese. The first Celestials who ventured into camp were promptly hanged. During winter months hundreds perished along the icy mountain passes; the route was lined with dead horses and mules, as were the streets in town. Soon the population had risen to 10,000, and still the human flood continued.

Ruthless profiteering by local storekeepers founded many a fortune. Staple groceries sold at four times their price in Denver; a barrel of whisky often netted a $1,500 profit; hay frequently brought $200 a ton. An endless chain of freight teams traveled between Denver, Colorado Springs, and Canon City, laden with bacon and sealskin coats, flour and jewels, champagne and mining machinery. The railheads, 75 miles distant, were a hopeless confusion of freight and men awaiting transportation. Six stage lines served the camp before it was six months old.

Accommodations were wholly inadequate and most expensive. The few hotels turned away hundreds each night, and lodging houses charged $1 for the privilege of sharing a bed with another in makeshift rooms containing a dozen beds. A large tent was pitched on a side street and advertised as the best "hotel" in town. The Mammoth Palace, a vast shed with accommodations for 500, contained double tiers of hard bunks occupied day and night, a guest paying so¢ for a sleeping turn of eight hours. Thousands fought for permission to curl up on draughty saloon floors, paying high for preferred spots near the stove. Pneumonia claimed scores of victims, many of whom were buried at night without coffins and in unmarked graves to keep the mounting death rate from becoming known. Hundreds were starving; saloons offered no free lunches, although some served wit meals; these and the many 15¢ eating houses were crowded 24 hours a day. Newspapers appealed to citizens to "leave your meal boxes open." Many miners ate their fill in restaurants and asked to be arrested when presented with their checks; some were jailed, but the majority were merely roughly handled.

In February 1878, Father Robinson and Parson Uzzell organized their respective churches, Catholic and Methodist. Father Robinson commandeered the first load of brick to reach the town, it is said, and with it Irish miners built his church, topped with a tall steeple ; later, the railroad company presented the congregation with the bell that still sounds over the city. Uzzell persuaded many of the saloons to close for half an hour every evening while he preached on the street and collected funds for his building. By 1879 seven churches of various denominations were holding services, which led the local Chronicle to comment, "All have but one religion and one God in common ; it is the Crucified Carbonate." Rische, one of the men whom Tabor had grubstaked, spent part of his fortune in financing a church and became an ardent worshiper. When a member suggested buying a chandelier, Rische denounced it as wicked extravagance, arguing, "Besides, vot ye vant to puy one of dem for? None of us knows how to blay on id."

In 1879 was built the first schoolhouse, such as it was, for citizens complained that it was a disgrace to a city of 20,000. At the same time three breweries were running at capacity, with beer at 5¢ a schooner, six for 250. But champagne, or what passed for it, remained the drink of splurgers, and immense quantities were consumed. An enterprising Denverite concocted a "cider" from brown suger, water, and yeast, and engaged teamsters to collect empty champagne bottles from Leadville alleys, offering $7 a hundred; one teamster brought in 9,000 on his first trip. The bottles, refilled with the Denver mixture, found ready sale at local bars to bonanza kings and their hangers-on.

Jack Morrissey acquired a fortune before he could tell the time of day, but his proudest possession was a diamond-studded watch; when anyone inquired the time of him, he remarked, handing him the watch, "See fer yeself, then ye'll know I'm not lyin' to yez." Morrissey later toured Europe, squandered a fortune, and died in the Denver poorhouse. Jack McCombe, owner of the Maid of Erin Mine, spent thousands buying presents for almost everyone in County Antrim, his home in Ireland. Pete Breene rose from windlass-turner to millionaire from the Crown Point Mine, entered politics, was elected lieutenant governor and treasurer of the State, and founded a bank. Striking it rich, Pat Gallagher, an Irish roustabout, walked the streets and bought each of his old friends a suit of clothes and banqueted them at the fashionable Tontine, with champagne and pretty girls, a high spot in the life of many an old sourdough.

Resorts advertised for waitresses, specifying that they "must appear in short clothes or no engagement." Below a Gospel Guide column headed, "Where our Local Divines Will Hang Out Tomorrow," was an account of spirited gun play at the Bon Ton. In Jeff Winney's California Concert Hall, patrons "bucked the tiger" under the watchful eye of Kitty Crawhurst, popular "lady" gambler. The fashionable wined and dined at the Tontine on State Street where New York chefs prepared culinary delicacies, but everyone patronized Smoothey's, just around the corner; its ox-tail soup at 5¢ a bowl was famed from the Rockies to the West Coast.

Every night brass bands assembled along State Street before variety houses and wine theaters to blare in friendly rivalry for an hour or more, afterwards parading the principal streets with banners advertising "cancans, female bathers, daring tumblers, and other dramatic attractions." Among the larger theaters were the Grand Central, the New, and the Gaiety; admission ranged from 25¢ to $1, with boxes at $5. The boxes, a visiting Britisher reported, "were filled, a moiety of occupants being harlots, painted, noisy, and in all ways loveless." Charles Sidney Vivian, an English actor, appeared at the Grand Central in 1880, and died here later in the year. Vivian had founded the Jolly Corks in New York in 1867, later reorganized as the Benevolent Protective Order of Elks, and in 1889 his body was removed to Elk's Rest in Mt. Hope Cemetery, Boston.

Those of quieter tastes organized bicycle, archery, roller skating, and dance clubs; masquerade balls were gala events. "Bill" Bush, Tabor's partner, formed a Trotting and Running Association and built a half-mile track, one of the finest in the West. Driving became very popular, especially with the women of State Street, who drove every evening, "usually intoxicated and smoking long black cigars," so the press reported.

Almost from the first an orgy of speculation and frenzied finance swept the camp. Mines, prospects, even shallow holes in the ground, were sold and resold many times a day, and always at a profit. Millions were made from grubstakes of a few dollars. Every day brought forth some new and incredible discovery; yokels from the cornfields dug into ground passed over as valueless by experienced prospectors and became wealthy. A prospector died during mid-winter, so it is said, and was placed in a snowbank until friends could hire a man to dig a grave in the frozen ground. After a long delay they visited the cemetery to find that the sexton had struck a rich silver lode while excavating. Within a few days the cemetery was staked out, and the dead man, forgotten, remained in the snowbank until the spring thaw.

By 1880 estimates of Leadville's population ranged from 25,000 to 40,000; the Chronicle placed it at 60,000. The constant fire hazard led to the organization of three volunteer fire companies and the Leadville Water Company. As little solder was available, many pipe joints and faucets were "wiped" with silver. Military companies were organized and financed by the Carbonate Kings—the Leadville Guards, the Carbonate Rifles, the Tabor Highland Guards, the Tabor Light Cavalry, the Pitkin Cavalry, among others. Tabor's Highlanders were accoutered in black doublets with blue and red cord and facings, kilts of royal Stuart style, a sporan of white goat's hair, stockings dashed with red and green, and Prince Charlie bonnets ; his guards were magnificent in red trousers, blue coats, and brass helmets. Ostensibly formed to resist the Ute, who were never a menace, these gaudily uniformed private armies at once satisfied the Carbonate Kings' craving for splendor and protected their persons and properties.

Harrison Avenue was laid out in 1878 and soon rivaled Chestnut Street as a business thoroughfare. Lots along it sold at $250 a front foot; stores rented at $500 a month. Just above the dance halls, variety theaters, and brothels along State Street and part of Main, was Carbonate Avenue, lined with the dwellings of merchant princes and mining moguls. Tabor, however, continued to live for a time in a small clapboard cottage on Harrison Avenue, later moving it intact to Carbonate Avenue. On Capitol Hill, another fashionable quarter, set aside for future State buildings by optimistic citizens who were convinced that the "Magic City" was destined to become the capital of Colorado, were a few houses of "imposing architecture," as a visitor described them, for they had "more than four angles, ornamental cornices, and are painted."

Upon the basis of a placer mining patent the Starr Company laid claim to almost all of the city. The company divided its holdings into small lots and attempted to sell them at exorbitant prices to "squatters" who had already built on the sites, threatening the occupants with eviction unless payment was made. The aroused miners held a huge meeting, and an indignant notice appeared warning company heads to "leave town in ten days or less or come to terms if you do not we will hang you in spite of hell we have done the same thing in Montana we hung — — — like you and come out all right .. ." But the company continued its "Zulu" outrages, as the Chronicle characterized them.

Armed ruffians, attempting to tear down the only hospital in town, were thwarted by 100 men who guarded it day and night. When an attempt was made to "jump" the lot donated the First Methodist Church, "Parson Tom" Uzzell collected arms and drove the men off as they were dumping a load of lumber on the property. Holdups, assaults, and gun fights filled the night with terror. Roving bands of desperadoes erected toll gates on several important roads, demanding payment of all travelers, robbing those who protested. Express companies soon refused to transport coin or bullion, and traffic in and out of the city was at a standstill. Mine owners erected barricades around their property and kept armed guards always on duty. The Leadville Chronicle, which appeared in January 1879 with a reported issue of 7,000 copies, termed it "the Reign of the Footpads."

When the few police proved powerless against these depredations, citizens took the law into their own hands. The formation of Vigilantes, with subsequent hangings and banishment of known thugs, restored some semblance of order. Mart Duggan, notorious bully and killer, was appointed city marshall. Quick with his fists and gun, boasting that he had killed seven men, Duggan hunted down the worst of the ruffians. Occasionally he assaulted the innocent and was often in trouble—once threatening to throw Mayor Tabor into jail—but he retained his position for several years. When he finally resigned and departed, Tabor wired him to return. Duggan was killed in 1888 outside the Texas House by one of three gamblers who had drawn lots to see who should shoot him.

Substantial brick buildings began to appear. Banks were "over-run with deposits," but the post office remained the depository of the miners, who purchased money orders payable to themselves and renewed them on expiration. Money orders averaged $1,000 a day for a long period, more than half the rate in St. Louis, four times that in Kansas City. Two large hotels were built—the Clarendon and the Grand. The latter stood on Chestnut Street and was kept by Thomas F. Walsh, whose profits here later enabled him to discover and operate the noted Camp Bird mine at Ouray (see Tour 18).

Tabor built an opera house with elaborate private boxes for himself and "Bill" Bush. Friends in business and politics, they were rivals for the attention of every visiting star. When Gladys Robeson, a popular variety actress of the day, appeared in "red tights that set off her admirable figure," Tabor tossed a handful of silver dollars across the footlights. Bush immediately tossed two handfuls; Tabor, four; their supply of silver exhausted, Tabor and Bush sent to the gambling rooms below for bags of gold pieces. The battle raged, with a whooping audience participating until virtually every coin in the house was on the stage. The actress gathered up some $5,000, the stage hands even more, but the handsome actress declined an introduction to either of the rivals

Those who founded fortunes here included Meyer Guggenheim, who came from Philadelphia in 1879, and with R. B. Graham bought the A. Y. and Minnie mines, which within a few months were netting a profit of $1,000 a day; a decade later they were valued at $14,000,000. In 1888 Guggenheim and his sons established the Philadelphia Smelter at Pueblo, later sold for $10,000,000. Here in 1880, Samuel Newhouse made the lucky strike that enabled him to hobnob with the Prince of Wales' set in London and to become one of the largest copper operators in the world; it was he who erected the Flatiron building in New York. Alva Adams, three times Governor of the State, father of Alva B. Adams, present (1940) U. S. Senator from Colorado, took a fortune from the Blind Tour. John L. Routt, last Territorial Governor, was owner of rich Carbonate Hill property. Charles Boettcher, pioneer Leadville merchant, later organized the Colorado Portland Cement Company and became one of the State's wealthiest industrialists.

By the end of 1880 the town had 28 miles of streets. Harrison Avenue and Chestnut Street were paved with slag from the smelters, and in summer the dust was laid by a man who ladled water from a barrel and collected what he could from citizens along his route. This derelict was Abe Lee, who, after making the first gold discoveries in California Gulch 20 years before, had squandered two fortunes. Tabor organized a street railway company that failed because the large wooden cars were too heavy for horses to pull up the steep grades. A telephone exchange, established in 1879, was "talking like a charm," and the Evening Times reported the arrest of the city's "first insane person," who was charged with spending all of his time in prayer and religious exhortation. In 1880 the tracks of the Denver & Rio Grande Western advanced up the Arkansas to the camp, and those of the Denver & South Park soon entered from the north.

There were 14 smelters and ore reduction plants in the Leadville district in 1881, the first having been established in 1875 at Malta. In the intervening years the district had become the smelting center of the Rocky Mountain region, and the importance of the smelters to the development of the region was second only to that of the mines. The demand for labor in the plants brought in large numbers of Austrians, Croats, Serbs, and Slovenes. Many turned to the mines, attracted by better wages, which led to a second immigration, largely of Mexicans and Spanish-Americans, who replaced other nationalities in the smelting industry. Miners and smelter hands struck in 1880 for higher wages and improved working conditions. Fatalities ran high in tin mills and mines, and public sympathy was with the strikers. When Vigilantes and the Carbonate Kings' military companies failed to overawe them, martial law was declared and the strike collapsed, leaving owners in undisputed possession of the field for more than a decade.

Leadville's decline began in 1881. Production of silver reached a peak of $15,473,946 in 1880, although the Morning Star, Chrysolite, Catalpa, Little Pittsburg, Matchless, Iron Silver, and other celebrated mines held production around $10,000,000 for several years. But some of the largest and richest properties, due to reckless exploitation, were nearing exhaustion. When it was revealed that certain mines had been borrowing heavily to pay dividends, stocks dropped from many dollars to a few cents. Charges were made that stock in many companies had been manipulated by insiders. Investors became panic stricken and unloaded their shares, breaking the market. One by one, the banks failed. Tabor and other mining kings abandoned the city for Denver. The sporting gentry left for more lucrative fields. Fires destroyed the Grant Smelter, a few larger hotels, and several department stores, one owned by Dave May, who later established a large chain of such stores in the East and West.

Population dwindled and silver production decreased; but the town itself was as little prepared as Tabor and his associates for the blow that fell in 1893 when the mints in India ceased buying silver for coinage. The Sherman Silver Purchase Act was repealed, and the depression of 1893 sent the price of the white metal tumbling. "Those were the days of panic and gloom for Leadville," declared the Herald-Democrat, reviewing the events of that year. "Ruin and bankruptcy stared every mining man, every smelting man, and every business man in the face." The fabulous era of silver had ended.

In the winter of 1895 business men organized a Crystal Carnival, building a mammoth ice palace. The castellated structure of Norman design covered five acres; within its ice walls, 8 feet thick and 50 feet high, were a ballroom, a skating rink, a restaurant, peep shows, and curio shops. Frozen into the walls were specimens of ore, produce, and meat; ice and snow statues graced the interior. The palace, visited by thousands, remained open until July 4, 1896, before it melted away.

Leadville experienced a revival late in the 1890's with the discovery of the Little Johnny and other rich gold mines east of the city. The Little Johnny had been worked as early as 1884 by James J. Brown, who had come to Leadville in 1880 in the employ of David H. Moffat. His fame is somewhat eclipsed by that of his wife, who was prominent in New York, Newport, and European society; a heroine of the Titanic disaster, she became known as "the unsinkable Mrs. Brown." Later John F. Campion, who had arrived in 1879, purchased the Little Johnny and consolidated it with other properties as the Ibex Mining Company, from which came another great Colorado fortune. Campion later pioneered the sugar beet industry in Colorado, building its first beet sugar factory (see Grand Junction).

Until the close of the World War, large lead, zinc, and manganese deposits in the vicinity were worked profitably, but declining prices, the exhaustion of rich lodes, and the flooding of shafts subsequently forced the closing of many mines. During the prohibition era numerous isolated and deserted shafts housed whisky stills, and "Leadville moon" was highly regarded and commanded good prices throughout the West. Growth of agriculture, ranching, and tourist business has recently contributed to the city's welfare. During the 1930's population has increased, largely due to the development of molybdenum deposits at Climax and intensive working of old gold, silver, lead, and zinc properties; many abandoned stores and houses have been reconditioned.

Life in Leadville still has a lusty- if somewhat subdued, note, for the town has never felt sorry for itself or brooded over its vanished glory. One of the greatest of mining camps, it wears its somewhat tattered and faded purple mantle with an air.

The three-story frame WYMAN SALOON, SE. corner Harrison Ave. and State St., built in the early 1880's, once the most popular and complete pleasure resort in the city, with bars, gambling parlors, a dance hall, and a variety theater, is now a dilapidated rooming house. "Pop" Wyman ruled here with a firm but gentle hand; no drunken man was ever served at the bar; no married man was allowed to play at the tables; across the face of the large clock was written "Please Don't Swear," and over the orchestra appeared the gentle admonition, "Don't Shoot the Pianist—He's Doing His Damndest." Special officers were on duty at all hours to enforce these and other rules. Here the Reverend T. Dewitt Talmage, New York divine, described as an "ecclesiastical yellow-back, a sort of religious Bowery Boy" because of his craving for publicity, read service from the large Bible chained to a mahogany pulpit, a permanent fixture just within the swinging doors. Here Oscar Wilde, in silk knee breeches, drank with the miners and found them "not at all rough." The establishment is said to have netted Wyman $45,000 annually.

The SITE OF THE TEXAS HOUSE, SW. corner at Harrison Ave. and State St., a renowned "gambling hell" operated by Bailey Youngston and "Con" Featherly, took in during the boom "more money in a day than the Carbonate Bank." Bars occupied the entire ground floor; faro games went on 24 hours a day, patronized by miners, furnace hands, charcoal burners, clerks, and all corners. For mining kings and merchant princes, a side entrance led upstairs into a lavishly furnished apartment, with dining, reading, and game rooms, and a buffet where guests were invited to help themselves. On one occasion, when the proprietors entertained the Carbonate Kings and other local celebrities, the house lost $30,000 in an hour's play, a record for the time. Outside the door of the old Texas, City Marshal Mart Duggan was shot and killed in 1888.

The PIONEER CLUB, 118 W. 2nd (State) St., a two-story brick building, is the sole survivor of the early city's many noted drinking and gambling establishments. During the 1880's it swarmed with men crowding about the roulette wheels. Of the original furnishings there still remains the massive bar with its stained-glass lamps. As gambling is no longer permitted, the apparatus has been stored in an adjoining room, where the management sometimes allows it to be seen. The DEXTER CABIN (open daily), 110 W. 3rd St., a small two-room log cabin built in 1878-79, overshadowed by a huge brick chimney and surrounded by a picket fence, is maintained as a museum by the Leadville Historical Society to preserve relics of the mining era. On exhibit are a bureau and spring chair, owned by the first Mrs. Tabor, and a high secretary, the property of her husband. Before the fireplace stands a hand-carved embroidered screen bearing the Colorado State Seal in colors, presented to John A. Campion, one of the mining kings, by his employees.

The ELKS OPERA HOUSE (open daily; guides; apply at office off lobby), 308 Harrison Ave., was formerly the Tabor Grand Opera House. On the second floor of the four-story brick building is the theater, opened on November 21, 1879, advertised at the time as the finest playhouse west of the Mississippi, with all appointments "first class in every respect . . . the coziest place for lovers of the legitimate drama to throw off the cares of life and yield to the fascinations of music and imagery." On the ground floor was the Cabinet Saloon, handsomely appointed, where the male audience enjoyed a drink and a hand of poker between acts.

The opening night, at which The Serious Family and Who's Who were presented, was poorly attended because two nights previously the Vigilantes had hanged two men from the rafters of the unfinished courthouse a few steps up the street, and the hushed and uneasy town was in no mood for frivolity. Melodramas, farces, and Shakespearian tragedies held the boards until 1882, when the Emma Abbott English Grand Opera Company arrived. For this gala event "plug hats, heretofore a rarity, suddenly appeared on the heads of male bipeds," so the Chronicle reported, and "the ladies came in full bloom; flashy dresses, white opera hats, and colors flying."

Later that year an audience accorded a warm welcome to Oscar Wilde, who stepped upon the stage in a suit of "elegant black velvet. with knee breeches and black stockings, a Byron collar and white neck-handkerchief. . . . On his shirt front glittered a single cluster of diamonds." He spoke at length on "The Practical Application of the Aesthetic Theory to Exterior and Interior House Decoration, with Observations on Dress and Personal Ornament." The miners understood little of what "Wilde said in his dull manner, but they liked him, being quite frankly awed by his capacity to drink hard liquor.

The Opera House, acquired by the Elks Club in 1905, is now used for infrequent local productions. In the foyer hang photographs of Chauncey Olcott, Robert Mantell, Louis James, and others who appeared here. In the rooms of the ELKS CLUB (open by permission), off the lobby, is a scale model of the Matchless mine, showing underground workings and methods used in digging ore and bringing it to the surface.

The SITE OF THE CLARENDON HOTEL adjoins the Elks Opera House to the south. Built in 1879, one of the first large hotels in the city, it was torn down early in the 1930's. Its bar and lobby were the club of the Carbonate kings, who here gave banquets to President U. S. Grant and his wife, General Sherman, the Duke of Cumberland, Commodore Vanderbilt, and Jay Gould. The food prepared by Monsieur L. Lapierce from Deimonico's, New York, was celebrated. Oscar Wilde stayed here during his engagement, and callers found him reclining on a couch, "some six feet tall, with long hair reaching to his shoulders . . . a languid far-away look in his eyes." Much to their chagrin, he was dressed in tweeds, "without sunflower or lily."

The TABOR HOUSE, 116 E. 5th St., a small five-room red clapboard house, was the home of H. A. W. Tabor and his wife Augusta during their last years in Leadville. Augusta Tabor viewed the family's sudden affluence with misgivings, dreading its effects upon their lives; she preferred this small house to a luxurious palace, and her disinclination to play the grand lady was one of the causes of their divorce.

The HOTEL VENDOME, 701 Harrison Ave., a four-story brick structure, its false mansard roof ornamented with cupolas in the manner of the 1880's, was opened in 1885 as the Tabor Grand Hotel and renamed in 1894. The elaborately decorated and furnished bar is said to have had the finest stock in the State. It was tended by "Powder House Billy," quick with his fists, who on one occasion knocked out a guest who refused to pay for his drinks, on the ground that he did not wish to encourage intemperance.

The PUBLIC LIBRARY (open 1-8:30 daily), NE. corner 9th St. and Harrison Ave., a two-story red brick structure built in 1902, contains 15,000 volumes, including a special collection on Leadville history.

The HEALY HOUSE (open daily; caretaker-guide), NE. corner Harrison Ave. and E. loth St., a two-story frame building built in the early 1880's, has been restored by the National Youth Administration, and is maintained by the Leadville Historical Society as an example of the better houses of early days. It is furnished in the period.

The MATCHLESS MINE (open daily; adm. 25¢), E. on 7th Ave. to the junction with a dirt road, 1.4 miles, L. here 1.5 miles, was Tabor's most prized possession and one of the great bonanzas of the district. On Fryer Hill overlooking the valley, the property was purchased by Tabor in 1881 for $117,000 and netted him $10,000,000, paying $100,000 a month at times. A single shipment of ore from this mine, which Tabor's contemporaries had pronounced worthless, assayed 10,000 ounces of silver a ton. When Oscar Wilde visited the mine, he was met at the bottom of the shaft by a dozen miners, each with a bottle. All of the bottles made the rounds; after the twelfth drink, Wilde was cool and collected, and was "voted a perfect gentleman" by the somewhat tipsy miners. Repairs were made to the surface plant and an electric hoist was installed in 1937, when the mine was reopened.

Just south of the shafthouse is the TABOR CABIN (open), a one-room wooden shack with a lean-to, now occupied by the caretaker of the mine. Here the second Mrs. Tabor ("Baby Doe"), celebrated beauty of the early camp, lived alone in poverty for many years, rejecting all offers of assistance, stubborn in the belief that some day the deep veins of the Matchless would again produce a silver fortune. She was found dead here on March 7, 1935, having died a day or two before. One end of the cabin was piled high with mementoes of the Tabors' lives, bundles of newspapers, and a miscellany of unopened presents sent by unknown friends who admired a faith that could not be shaken.

Adjoining the Matchless mine on the south stands the last of the long-abandoned buildings of the ROBERT E. LEE MINE, Leadville's greatest bonanza. Long an undeveloped claim on Fryer Hill, it was bought in 1879 by Jim Baxter, who sank a 100-foot shaft, found no ore, and sold it for $30,000. The following morning the new owners put in a single shot of dynamite and exposed a vein of almost pure silver. More than $500,000 was taken out within three months; in one 24-hour period $118,500 was mined; an operator, it is said, offered $10,000 for permission to work an hour on an area four feet square, and was scornfully refused.

Climax Mine, 13.1 miles (see Tour 1b) ; Arkansas Valley Smelter, 1.7 miles, Mount of the Holy Cross, 34 miles, Mount Massive and Mount Elbert, 10 miles, and Twin Lakes, 19.7 miles (see Tour 5c) ; Carlton Tunnel, 12.9 miles (see Tour 5D).