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Horace Austin Warner Tabor

Horace Austin Warner Tabor (1830-1899), an American mining magnate and politician, was a great benefactor of Colorado.

Horace Tabor was born in Orleans County, Vt., on Nov. 26, 1830. He left home while still in his teens and became a stonecutter. In 1855 he migrated to Kansas. While farming there, he also served in the Free State legislature; neither endeavor proved rewarding, so he joined the Pike's Peak gold rush in 1859.

For the next 18 years Tabor's activities shifted from camp to camp, where he gained mining experience and operated a store. The merchant-miner combination produced a steady income, but his chance for wealth came with the opening of the Leadville, Colo., silver mines. A fortunate grubstake by Tabor to two prospectors in 1878 led to the discovery of the Little Pittsburg Mine and his first million dollars; then successful investments parlayed his worth to $5-7 million.

Tabor invested in mines in almost all the western states and Mexico. Once he was financially secure, he turned to politics. He served two terms as Republican lieutenant governor of Colorado (1879-1883) and hoped to become a senator, but after an expensive and bitter campaign in 1882-1883 he was chosen by the legislature only to fill an un-expired 30-day term. Later attempts for the party's gubernatorial nomination failed, but he liberally supported the Republicans despite the rebuffs.

Tabor moved to Denver in 1879 and significantly contributed to the city's growth. The first of the Colorado mining millionaires to invest his fortune at home, he built the Tabor Block and the famous Tabor Grand Opera House. He displayed his confidence in the future of the state by investing in Leadville and other towns and helping to open the San Juan, Gunnison, and Aspen areas.

This faith in western growth led Tabor into marginal investments which failed. By the late 1880s decreasing mine production and a falling silver price forced him to mortgage sound holdings to continue development. When the economic crash of 1893 came, his business-mining empire was debt-ridden. Collapse followed, and a final Mexican mining venture failed to save Tabor. Appointed Denver postmaster in 1898, he died on April 10, 1899.

The scandal of Tabor's divorce from Augusta Pierce and his remarriage to Elizabeth McCourt (Baby) Doe in 1883 made him a pariah to many contemporaries but he outlived the stigma. Douglas Moore's opera The Ballad of Baby Doe (1955) is based on the event.

Further Reading

Tabor has been the subject of numerous articles and several books: Lewis Gandy, The Tabors (1934), and David Karsner, Silver Dollar: The Story of the Tabors (1954), are dated and fail to do justice to the man. See also George F. Willison, Here They Dug Gold (1931; 3d ed. 1946).

Additional Sources

Smith, Duane A., Horace Tabor: his life and the legend, Boulder: University Press of Colorado, 1989.

 
 
Columbia Encyclopedia: Tabor, Horace Austin Warner
(tā'bər) , 1830–99, American prospector, known as Silver Dollar Tabor, b. Holland, Vt. From the Matchless Mine at Leadville, Colo., he gained tremendous wealth by mining silver, and he spent money lavishly in Leadville and Denver. He became (1878) the first mayor of Leadville, served (1878–83) as lieutenant governor of Colorado, and sat in the U.S. Senate for about one month to complete an unexpired term (1883). He lost most of his fortune and at his death begged his second wife, Elizabeth McCourt Tabor, 1862–1935, known as Baby Doe, to hold the Matchless Mine, which he believed would again yield wealth. She was found frozen to death in a shack near the mine, where she had lived alone for many years. Douglas Moore's opera The Ballad of Baby Doe (1956) portrays the love affair of Tabor and Baby Doe.

Bibliography

See G. L. Hall, The Two Lives of Baby Doe (1962); D. A. Smith, Horace Tabor: His Life and the Legend (1973).

 
Wikipedia: Horace Austin Warner Tabor
Horace Tabor
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Horace Tabor

Horace Austin Warner Tabor (November 26, 1830 - April 10, 1899), also known as Silver Dollar Tabor and The Bonanza King of Leadville, was an American prospector, businessman, and politician born in Holland, Vermont to Cornelius Dunham Tabor and Sarah Ferrin. His life is the subject of Douglas Moore's opera, The Ballad of Baby Doe.

After training as a stone mason, Tabor left home at age 19 to work the quarries of Maine and Massachusetts. In 1855, he departed for the Kansas Territory with the New England Emigrant Aid Company to populate that territory with anti-slavery settlers. There he farmed land along Deep Creek in Riley County, near Manhattan, Kansas (known today as Tabor Valley). In January 1856, Tabor was elected to the Free-State Topeka Legislature, but that body was soon dispersed by President Franklin Pierce in favor of the pro-slavery legislature that had been elected under the influence of "Border Ruffians" from Missouri.

In 1857 Tabor returned briefly to Maine to marry Augusta Pierce, daughter of his former employer William B. Pierce, then returned with her to Riley County. In 1859, as rumors of gold began to spread, the couple moved west with the "Fifty-Niners" to Denver (still in Kansas Territory at the time). The Tabors soon relocated to the California Gulch area where Horace sought gold until 1877, when they settled in Leadville, Colorado. There he continued prospecting while also engaging in business and politics. The couple ran Leadville's general store and postal system and, following his election on January 26, 1878, Tabor served as mayor of Leadville for one year.

On May 3, 1878, the "Little Pittsburg" mine claimed by August Rische and George Hook revealed massive silver lodes, kicking off the "Colorado Silver Boom." Tabor had provisioned the men for free, under a "grubstake" arrangement, and used his partial ownership of Little Pittsburg to invest in other holdings. He eventually sold his interest for one million dollars, and bought sole ownership of the profitable "Matchless Mine" for $117,000. With his new wealth, Tabor established newspapers, a bank, and an opera house in Leadville, and the Tabor Grand Opera House and the Tabor Block in Denver.

Also in 1878, Tabor was elected Lieutenant Governor of Colorado and served in that post until January 1884. He served as U.S. Senator from January 27, 1883 until March 3, 1883, following the resignation of Henry M. Teller. On March 1, 1883, Tabor finally legalized his relationship with Elizabeth "Baby Doe" McCourt in a public (and, to some, scandalous) wedding ceremony at the Willard Hotel in Washington, DC after securing a divorce with Augusta. This marriage produced two daughters, Elizabeth Bonduel Lily and Rosemary Silver Dollar Echo. From his marriage to Augusta, Tabor fathered one son, Maxey.

Tabor ran for Colorado governor in 1884, 1886, and 1888, without success. Then, in 1893, the repeal of the Sherman Silver Purchase Act devastated Tabor's fortune and his far-flung holdings were sold off. Still a respected public figure, he was made postmaster of Denver from January 4, 1898 until his death the following year.

When he fell ill with appendicitis in 1899, Tabor's final request of Baby Doe was that she maintain the Matchless claim. She returned to Leadville and lived in poverty and insanity in a shack beside the Matchless mine for thirty-six years, although at that time the mine no longer belonged to her. Her corpse was found in March 1935, frozen with her arms crossed peacefully across her chest. Her story would eventually inspire many artistic pieces, by Douglas Moore and others.

When Tabor himself died in 1899, flags were flown at half staff and 10,000 people were reported to have attended his funeral. His body was interred at Mt. Calvary Cemetery in Denver and later reinterred at Mt. Olivet Cemetery, in Jefferson County, Colorado, where it now rests beside that of Baby Doe.

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Preceded by
George M. Chilcott		 United States Senator (Class 2) from Colorado
1883
Served alongside: Nathaniel P. Hill		 Succeeded by
Thomas M. Bowen

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