Leadville's fame and famous, booms and busts

The early Californication of Colorado

Hydraulic mining, California Gulch, Colorado, 

photographed and published by W.G. Chamberlain, 1878.

 

By Rob Carrigan, robcarrigan1@gmail.com

The early gold camp (it was a gold camp first,) was known by many names: Slabtown, Boughtown, Cloud City, Carbonate, California Gulch, Harrison,  Agassiz, Oro City, and more. When the time came for legal adoption, controversy raged. "One faction favored Harrison for Harrison of the Harrison Reduction Works. Horace Tabor, storekeeper, favored Leadville, and prevailed according to "Colorado Place Names" by Geo R. Eicher. The town's name was chosen for the large amount argentiferous lead ores in the vicinity.

Like the rich and famous of Hollywood, over time, Leadville's visitor and resident list reads like a Who's Who for for early Colorado. 

Horace Tabor, the silver king, comes to mind of course, and his first and second wives, Augusta and Baby Doe. Augusta Tabor was the first postmistress, there, in fact. In 1883 Horace Tabor divorced his wife of 25 years and married Baby Doe McCourt, who was half his age. Tabor was by then a US senator, and the divorce and marriage caused a scandal in Colorado and beyond. For several years the couple lived a lavish lifestyle in a Denver mansion, but Tabor, one of the wealthiest men in Colorado, lost his fortune when the repeal of the Sherman Silver Purchase Act caused the Panic of 1893. He died destitute but remained convinced that the price of silver would rebound. According to legend, he told Baby Doe to "hold on the Matchless mine ... it will make millions again when silver comes back." She returned to Leadville with her daughters, Silver Dollar and Lily, where she spent the rest of her life believing Tabor's prediction. At one time the "best dressed woman in the West", she lived in a cabin at the Matchless Mine for the last three decades of her life. After a snowstorm in March 1935, she was found frozen in her cabin, aged about 81 years.

Mart Duggan, gunslinger and the city's third marshal was asked to come to clean up the town. The first city marshal there was run out of town a few days after he was appointed, and his replacement was shot dead within a month by one of his deputies. Fearing the town would be lost to the lawless element, Mayor Horace Tabor sent for Mart Duggan, who was living in Denver, as a replacement. Duggan is little-known today, but was well known at the time as a fearless gunfighter. Using strong-arm and lawless tactics, during his two stints as marshal Duggan brought order to Leadville by 1880 when he stepped down. He was shot and killed in 1888 by an unknown assailant, most likely an enemy he had made when he was a Leadville marshal. Historian Robert Dearment writes, "Mart Duggan was a quick-shooting, hard-drinking, brawling tough Irish man, but he was exactly the kind of man a tough, hard-drinking, quick-shooting camp like Leadville needed in its earliest days. His name is all but forgotten today, but the name 'Matt Dillon' is recognized around the world. Such are the vagaries of life."

Alice Ivers, better known as Poker Alice, was a card player and dealer of the Old West who learned her trade in Leadville. Born in Devonshire, her family moved to America when she was a small girl. They first settled in Virginia, where she attended an elite girls' boarding school. When she was a teenager, her family moved to Leadville when the silver boom drew hundreds of new residents to the area. At the age of twenty she married a mining engineer who, like many of the men at that time, frequented the numerous gambling halls in Leadville. Alice went along, at first just observing, but eventually she began to sit in on the games as well. After a few years of marriage her husband was killed in a mining accident and she turned to cards to support herself. Alice was attractive, dressed in the latest fashions, and was in great demand as a dealer. Eventually Alice left Leadville to travel the gambling circuit, as was common of the male gamblers of that time. She continued to dress in the latest fashions but took to smoking cigars. Well known throughout the West, gambling halls welcomed her because she was good for business. In her later years, Alice claimed to have won more than $250,000 at the gaming tables and never once cheated.

Texas Jack Omohundro, Confederate scout, cowboy and stage actor with "Buffalo Bill" Cody's travelling revue, died of pneumonia a month before his 34th birthday in summer 1880 in Leadville, where he was living on a small estate with his wife, ballerina Giuseppina Morlacchi.

"Doc" John Henry Holliday, about 1883, shortly after the gun fight at the O.K. Corral,  moved to Leadville, where he dealt faro. On August 19, 1884, he shot ex-Leadville policeman Billy Allen, who had threatened him for failing to pay a $5 debt. Despite overwhelming evidence implicating him, a jury found Holliday not guilty of the shooting or attempted murder.

Luke Short, Gunfighter and professional gambler, also spent time in Leadville.

Margaret "Molly" Brown, who became known as "The Unsinkable Molly Brown," moved to Leadville when she was 18. In 1886 she married a mining engineer who was twelve years older, James J. Brown. The Brown family acquired great wealth in 1893 when Brown was instrumental in the discovery of a substantial gold ore seam at the Little Jonny Mine.The mine was owned by his employers, the Ibex Mining Company. Margaret Brown became famous because of her survival of the 1912 sinking of the RMS Titanic, after exhorting the crew of Lifeboat No. 6 to return to look for survivors. A 1960 Broadway musical based on her life was produced, along with a 1964 film adaptation of the musical, both titled The Unsinkable Molly Brown. Her home in Denver has been preserved as the Molly Brown House Museum.

Meyer Guggenheim of the Guggenheim family started out in Leadville in mining and smelting. The family went on to possess one of the largest fortunes in the world. Family members have become known for their philanthropy in diverse areas such as modern art and aviation, including several Guggenheim Museums.

Oscar Wilde appeared at the Tabor Opera House during his 1882 American Aesthetic Movement lecture tour. The reviews were mixed, and the press satirized Wilde in cartoons as an English dandy decorated with sunflowers and lilies, the floral emblems of the Aesthetic Movement. A Kansas newspaper described the event: Oscar Wilde's visit to Leadville excited a great deal of interest and curiosity. The Tabor-opera house where he lectured was packed full. It was rumored that an attempt would be made by a number of young men to ridicule him by coming to the lecture in exaggerated costume with enormous sunflowers and lilies and to introduce a number of characters in the costume of the Western "bad men." Probably, however, better counsel prevailed and no disturbance took place. Mayor David H. Dougan invited Wilde to tour the Matchless Mine and name its new lode "The Oscar". Wilde later recounted a visit to a local saloon, "where I saw the only rational method of art criticism I have ever come across. Over the piano was printed a notice – 'Please do not shoot the pianist. He is doing his best."

Leadville historic timeline

Leadville.com, the city's site, provides a timeline with some of the following history. 

"Once the second largest city in Colorado and a contender for the state capital, Leadville’s treasure is now found in its 70-square-block historic district where Victorian architecture reigns and stories of the wild west come alive. From gunslingers, outlaws, and con men to madams, love triangles, and lawmen, Leadville had it all. Today, they city’s vibrant history is told through the efforts of eight museums and two walking tours,"says the site.

1860 – Abe Lee Discovers Gold

April 26, 1860, Abe Lee discovered a rich load of placer gold in California Gulch, one mile east of Leadville. In the fall, Leadville’s population reached 10,000 and $2 million in gold had been extracted from California Gulch and nearby Iowa Gulch. Lee staked all of California Gulch with speculative claims, which led to the establishment of the Bylaws of the California Mining District—regulations on the number, size, and type of claims that could be filed. Because of these laws, more prospectors descended upon an already crowded California Gulch.

1877 – Silver Discovered

By 1866, most of Leadville’s placer gold deposits had been depleted, causing many miners to pack up and leave. The remaining prospectors moved closer to town where heavy, black sand blanketed the area. In 1877, after assays contained 15 ounces of silver per ton. Early silver prospectors kept this silver discovery a secret for nearly two years. By 1879, word had spread and Leadville once again became a boom town.

Prospectors and merchants quickly returned to Leadville. Many new hotels, restaurants, saloons, and brothels sprang up. Mines spread southward and fortunes, like Horace Tabor’s and the Guggenheim’s, were made.

1878 – Leadville Gets its Name

Leadville has had several names since its discovery. It’s been known as California Gulch, Boughton, because of the once popular shelters made of tree boughs, Cloud City, because of the way the town is often covered in clouds, Harrison, after the owner of the first smelter, and Slabtown, because of the temporary homes built on slabs. It wasn’t until 1878, when the town petitioned for its first post office, that Horace Tabor gave it its official name, Leadville, after the lead ore found in the area.

1879 – Tabor Opera House Opens

Horace Tabor, one of the country’s most notorious silver magnates, known for, among other things construction of the Tabor Opera House, “the finest theater between St. Louis and San Francisco.”
Building’s materials were brought up in  wagons, making it one of the costliest buildings ever constructed in Colorado. Three stories high, made of stone, brick, and iron, and trimmed with Portland cement, the exterior was painted in red, gold, white, and sky-blue. Inside, red plush seats filled the theater and a curtain with an image of the Royal Gorge draped on the stage. Despite its opulence, the Tabor Opera House built in only 100 days.


1879 – Interlaken Hotel Opens

In 1879, John Statley and Charles Thomas built a hotel on the edge of Twin Lakes. Four years later, James V. Dexter bought the property and turned it into one of the most luxurious resorts Colorado had to offer.
Interlaken Resort, where visitors enjoyed gorgeous lake views, a log tavern, a pool hall, and a shed to accommodate horses —eventually fell on hard times when the lakes’ original dam, built at the turn of the century, was troubled by stagnation,  and suspected of causing disease.
The remains of Interlaken Resort and Dexter’s cabin, built in the mid-1890s, can still be seen today.

1893 – The Bust of the Silver Kings

The 1879 Silver Boom dramatically altered Colorado economy and Leadville’s silver lode alone brought in $82 million,  in part because of the Sherman Silver Purchase Act, which required the U.S. government to purchase millions of ounces of silver each year. The Act was repealed in 1893, busting silver prices, dropping wages, and putting miners and others out of work. Silver barons, like Horace Tabor, lost huge fortunes and Leadville’s economy limped accordingly.

Ice Palace, 1896, William Henry Jackson

1896 – Creation of the Leadville Ice Palace

After the repeal of the Sherman Silver Purchase Act, hoping to draw visitors, create jobs, and revitalize the economy, Leadville’s residents built the Leadville Ice Palace, a “fairytale come true.” Constructed in 36 days using 5,000 tons of ice, this 58,000-square-foot palace had an ice skating rink, a curling rink, a theater, toboggan runs, a ballroom, a dance floor, gaming rooms, and a carousel house.
Between Seventh Street and Eighth Street on the top of Capital Hill, Leadville’s Ice Palace was open for three months, from January 1, to March 28, when it started to melt and was condemned. Still, people continued to use the building all the way through June, when the skating rink was at last unusable.
The Ice Palace turned out to be a financial disaster for investors, but visitors said that when “the sun shone through the ice, it looked like 1,000 sparkling lights.”

1907 – San Isabel National Forest Established

San Isabel National Forest is one of eleven national forests in Colorado and features more than a million acres of snow-capped peaks, sparkling lakes, rich meadows, and raging rivers. In 1902, lands were first set aside as forest reserve. In 1907, this forest reserve was officially named San Isabel National Forest. From 1907 to 1945, the San Isabel National Forest grew to include several other large forests. Today, the forest has over 800 miles of hiking trails, several ski areas, 19 fourteeners, several scenic byways, and dozens of campgrounds.

Photos of Leadville, Main Street, in September, 1941, by Marion Post Wolcott

Hibernphobia, Great Hunger, self improvement all drive Irish to Colorado mines

Just because we are paranoid, doesn't mean they weren't out to get us.

 By Rob Carrigan, robcarrigan1@gmail.com
 
 There is a strong tradition of anti-Irish sentiment, known as Hibernphobia, that predates the "an Gorta Mor" or "The Great Hunger." It has led to fighting and sectarianism and cultural discrimination of Irish emigrants and their descendants for about 1,000 years now.  The "Troubles," "Bloody Sunday," and "No Irish Need Apply," are some of its manifestations. 
But just because we are paranoid, doesn't mean they weren't out to get us.
"At the extremes of the debate, the famine has been described as an unavoidable tragedy caused by the destruction of the Irish Potato crop by a sudden infestation of late blight, a disease of potatoes that had spread from continental Europe, or, alternatively, as an attempt by the British government to use the crisis as means of destroying the Catholic culture of the west of Ireland in what amounts to a case of genocide," writes Bill Price in his popular book, "Fifty Foods that Changed the Course of History."
Irish immigrants arrived in Colorado with the discovery of gold in the late 1850’s. Many, fleeing the potato famine on the "old sod,"  they came to Colorado as miners or railroad workers calling themselves "terriers." They settled in the mining camps seeking a better life and freedom from the discrimination they experienced in eastern cities. 
By the early 1860s, the Irish comprised one of the state’s largest and most visible immigrant groups. In the mining camp of Leadville, for example, they represented nearly 20 percent of the population.
"In the 1870 Census for Denver, 60 percent of Irish men are listed as common laborers, while 70 percent of the single Irish women are listed as domestic servants. Hibernians in early Colorado lifted, hauled, dug, fought, cleaned fed and scrubbed. They were the sweat, blood and muscle of an expanding American empire, extracting precious metals, laying new roads of iron and steel, and tending to the needs of the privileged," writes Dennis Gallagher, Tom Noel, and Jim Walsh in the introduction of their book "Irish Denver."
"Most of early Colorado's Irish miners migrated though other mining communities such as the copper mines of the Beara Peninsula in western County Cork, the Pennsylvania anthracite coal region, and copper country of Michigan's Upper Peninsula. Others mined regions in Scotland and England before moving to Colorado. Many of Colorado's Celts came via Canada," says Irish Denver.
"By 1880, Leadville boasted nearly 3,000 Irish-born residents and a sizable number of Irish Americans who had migrated from North American mining areas," wrote James Walsh in a recent History Colorado piece for Colorado Heritage magazine. 
"Leadville became the most Irish place in Colorado and one of the most Irish places in the United States," according to Walsh.
The miners' union, led by twenty-eight-year-old, Dublin-born Michael Mooney, quickly shut down Leadville's silver mining operations when they walked off the job in May 1880, to protest low pay, unsafe conditions and a new rule that banned miners from talking while they worked.
The backlash was severe and immediate.
"Nearly all of Colorado's newspapers declared the strikers were members of the legendary "Molly Maguires," a secret society of Irish tenant farmers that was said to have been responsible for the murders of several mining executives and other professionals in the Pennsylvania's anthracite coal region during the 1860s and 1870s," Walsh says.
The strike and the resultant hysteria led Governor Frederick Walker Pitkin to declare martial law less than two weeks later in Leadville, even though no violence preceded the declaration. More than 250 miners were arrested by Colorado National Guard troops and others. They were then forced at gunpoint to build roads on chain gangs. Similar tactics were used again in Leadville in 1896 and 1897 to break up another strike of the Western Federation of Miners. The incident ultimately led to resisting Irish miners being killed and buried in secret graves.
"Hibernian miners led two major Western Federation of Miners strikes in Cripple Creek. Irish American John C. Sullivan led the Denver-based Colorado Federation of Labor during the 1903-1904 Cripple Creek Strike. Mother Mary Jones was jailed in Trinidad, Colorado, when she became active in support of the striking coal miners and families during the time of the Ludlow Massacre," notes "Irish Denver."
Irish miner Vincent St. John is memorialized in Telluride Miner Memorial. The young man who, as president of Telluride's WFM Local 63, led the miners to victory in 1901, gaining the everlasting enmity of the mining corporations, was the son of an Irish immigrant, Marian "Mary" Cecilia Magee, and New York native, Silas St. John. 
In other example of anti Catholic, and anti-Irish sentiment, when a fire broke out in Cripple Creek on April 25, 1896; it had apparently started in a brothel in the Myers Avenue red light district during a dispute regarding customer service. That fire was extinguished, but another, more devastating fire broke out four days later and burned most of Cripple Creek.

A member of the American Protective Association took advantage of that second fire by attempting to dynamite St. Nicholas Hospital and rid Cripple Creek of its Roman Catholic institution. He did some damage to the hospital kitchen, but he also blew off his own leg.
Sister Mary Veronica Sinnott and the other Sisters of Mercy moved him and their other patients to Dr. Whiting's hospital, where they nursed the bomber back to health, for which he was reported to have been grateful.
Many Irish women were among the Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth, the Sisters of Mercy, and the Sisters of Loretto, who served the needy and built hospitals (many of them in mining camps) around the state.
"Like other major American cities, Denver had a strong Irish political presence. Families like the Carrigans, Currigans, and McNichols have served the state and the city in many capacities, as have renowned early politicians such as John A. Carroll, Edward Costigan, Edward Keating, Robert Morris, and Thomas Patterson. More recently, such figures as Joan Fitzgerald, Dennis Gallagher, Cary Kennedy, Mitch Morrissey, Mary Mullarkey, and Bill Owens have continued this long tradition of Irish political involvement." 
More than three million people in Ireland were entirely dependent on the potato, and the failure of the crop left them destitute. About a million Irish perished in the famine, and another million emigrated during a five year period then. About 72 percent of the Irish population is Catholic.
May is generally the driest month of the year in Ireland. 

Photo Information: 

First photo: A large crowd watches the armed Colorado National Guard escort striking members of the Western Federation of Miners from the depot to the court house, Cripple Creek, Colorado. Sept. 6, 1903.

		Second photo: Black members of Company K of the Deputy Army, sent to suppress the Cripple Creek Strike of 1894, pose outdoors and aim rifles at Camp Boynton, Beaver Park, Teller County, Colorado. The men stand in front of pitched tents. Two men hold U. S. flags. The men wear ammunition belts, hats, and metal canteens. Another group of men stands nearby and looks on. Photo by H.S. Poley