Among the more colorful characters of Leadville s golden age were r and his second wife, Elizabeth McCourt, better known as Baby Doe . Their history is fast becoming one of the legends of the Old West. Horace Austin Warner Tabor was a school teacher in Vermont. With his first wife and two children he left Vermont by covered wagon in 1855 to homestead in Kansas. Perhaps he did not find farming to his liking, or perhaps he was lured by rumors of fortunes to be made in Colorado mines. At any rate, a few years later he moved west to the small Colorado mining camp known as California Gulch, which he later renamed Leadville when he became its leading citizen. Great deposits of lead are sure to be found here. he said.
As it turned out, it was silver, not lead, that was to make Leadville s fortune and wealth. Tabor knew little about mining himself, so he opened a general store, which sold everything from boots to salt, flour, and tobacco.『It was his custom to grubstake prospective miners, in other words, to supply them with food and supplies, or grub , while they looked for ore, in return for which he would get a share in the mine if one was discovered.』①He did this for a number of years, but no one that he aided ever found anything of value.
Finally one day in the year 1878, so the story goes, two miners came in and asked for grub . Tabor had decided to quit supplying it because he had lost too much money that way. These were persistent, however, and Tabor was too busy to argue with them. Oh help yourself. One more time won t make any difference, He said and went on selling shoes and hats to other customers. The two miners took $17 worth of supplies, in return for which they gave Tabor a one-third interest in their findings. They picked a barren place on the mountain side and began to dig. After nine days they struck a rich vein of silver. Tabor bought the shares of the other two men, and so the mine belonged to him alone. This mine, known as the Pittsburgh Mine, made 1 300 000 for Tabor in return for his $17 investment.
