Augusta Tabor: Her Side of the Scandal (2024)

The Project Gutenberg EBook of Augusta Tabor, by Caroline BancroftThis eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and mostother parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictionswhatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms ofthe Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll haveto check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.Title: Augusta Tabor Her Side of the ScandalAuthor: Caroline BancroftRelease Date: January 15, 2016 [EBook #50934]Language: EnglishCharacter set encoding: UTF-8*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AUGUSTA TABOR ***Produced by Stephen Hutcheson, Dave Morgan and the OnlineDistributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

The Author

Caroline Bancroft is a third generation Coloradan who began writing her firsthistory for The Denver Post in 1928.

Her long-standing interest in western history was inherited. Her pioneergrandfather, Dr. F. J. Bancroft, was a founder of the Colorado Historical Societyand its first president.

His granddaughter has carried on the family tradition. She is the author ofthe interesting series of Bancroft Booklets, Silver Queen: The FabulousStory of Baby Doe Tabor, Famous Aspen, Denver’s Lively Past, HistoricCentral City, The Brown Palace in Denver, Tabor’s Matchless Mine andLusty Leadville, Glenwood’s Early Glamor, Augusta Tabor: Her Side ofthe Scandal, The Unsinkable Mrs. Brown, Unique Ghost Towns, Colorado’sLost Gold Mines and Buried Treasure, and the basic, over-all history,Colorful Colorado.

A Bachelor of Arts from Smith College, she later obtained a Masterof Arts degree from the University of Denver, writing her thesis on CentralCity, Colorado. Her full-sized Gulch of Gold is the attractive, definitivehistory of that well-known area.

She is shown standing beside the headgate at Lake Caroline on Mt.Bancroft, a Continental Divide peak named for her grandfather. The photowas taken by Charles Eaton in the summer of 1956.

STEPHEN L. R. McNICHOLSGovernor of Colorado1957-63

1

“She is a blonde, I understand, and paints. But I have never seen her.”

Augusta Tabor made this remark about Baby Doe in the course of along interview that she gave to a reporter for the Denver Republican. Theaccount appeared on October 31, 1883, and carried several heads. One ofthese read, “Mrs. Tabor No. 1 makes some spicy revelations.”

Augusta received her caller in the elegantly furnished sitting-room ofher twenty-room mansion. The house stood at the corner of SeventeenthAvenue and Lincoln Street but faced Broadway. Its address was 97 Broadway,and was entered along a spruce-lined circular driveway. The houseand its surrounding block of land had been part of her divorce settlementfrom the millionaire Silver King, Horace A. W. Tabor.

That divorce in the January preceding had been a national scandal,only to be topped by the even greater scandal of her former husband’s remarriage.The wedding was performed on March 1 in Washington whereTabor had gone to serve a thirty-day term as senator. It was attended by anumber of political big-wigs, including President Chester Arthur; but theycame without their wives. The women drew a sharp line against recognizing“that blonde,” the former Mrs. Elizabeth McCourt Doe.

The best people continued to draw that line. When the Tabors returnedto Denver after their honeymoon, no one called on the second Mrs. Tabor.But shortly afterward Augusta came home from California where she hadtaken her broken heart. Two hundred and fifty people organized a surprisereception for her at her palatial residence.

But in the following months Augusta brooded.

“I do not consider myself divorced from Mr. Tabor,” she told the reporter.“The whole proceedings were irregular. If it were not for my son,2Maxcy, I would commence suit tomorrow to have the divorce annulled. Irepeat, it was illegal.”

“Do you think Mr. Tabor would live with you if you were to have thedivorce set aside?” the reporter asked.

“No, I couldn’t hope for that. But it would be a great deal of satisfactionto know that that woman was no more to him than she was before hegave her his name and mine.”

Augusta glanced over to the center table where she had laid down hersewing, a piece of silk patchwork. The reporter thought she looked lonelyand sad-faced. Then she sighed.

“Well, there has been scandal enough, God knows. It would make abig volume if put in book form. It has aged me.”

A new chapter of the scandal was being enacted that week. HoraceTabor was suing his old friend and business manager, William H. Bush, for$25,000 because of sundry debts, including a $2,000 embezzlement as formermanager of the Tabor Grand Opera House of Denver. Bush had retaliatedwith a counter-suit against Tabor, asking payment for all sorts offlagrant services performed for the Silver King. The juicy trial was thesensation of the week.

Augusta had been called to testify for Bush. Her testimony had beenvery titillating; and she had startled the court even further by crossing overand sitting down beside Tabor while she tried to engage him in conversation.

“Mr. Tabor has changed a great deal,” she commented to the reporter.“He used to detest women of that kind. He would never allow me to whitewashmy face however much I desired to do so. She wants his money andwill hang to him as long as he has got a nickel. She don’t want an old man.”

The reporter ventured the suggestion that the fifty-two-year old Taborwas not such an old man.

“Oh, yes he is! He dyes his hair and moustache. I noticed him in thecourt room the other day. He was afraid to draw his handkerchief across hismouth for fear of staining it. I also noticed that the hair on his temples,which is gray, was colored nicely to give him a rejuvenated appearance.”

Augusta and the reporter conversed for two solid columns of small,tightly-packed print while she revealed a number of intimate matters. Thedetails of the secret, illegal, first divorce which Tabor had procured fromher in March, 1882, were set forth. Augusta claimed the charges had beena lie from beginning to end and gave conclusive data in refutation.

“Mr. Tabor used to be a truthful man. He is changed now,” she remarkedindignantly. After a pause, she continued with:

“I understand that she has her family quartered at his home. I meanall in this country. I understand that a fresh invoice is coming over fromIreland.”

The reporter smiled at her sally and encouraged her to talk on. Sheshowed him three scrapbooks that she was making of clippings aboutTabor. (These scrapbooks are now in the Western History Collection of theDenver Public Library, and contain this particular interview along withmany others.) Augusta explained that at first she had only saved newspaper3articles that spoke well of him. But now she was saving everything, and thelater clippings were all derogatory.

“Is there really seventeen in that McCourt family? Well, there is onething that Mr. Tabor cannot say, and that is that any of my relatives everlived off him. Not one of them ever received a cent from him. That womanwill break him up.”

Augusta liked to talk to newspaper people. She, herself, had contributedto Eastern newspapers and been a member of the Colorado State PressAssociation. In July, 1879, she attended a meeting of the Association atManitou in company with Flora Stevens, a correspondent for the KansasCity Times. Miss Stevens later wrote Augusta up under the heading, “ARich Man’s Wife,” in which she said that Augusta kept an extensive journalduring the trip to Manitou. Unfortunately this particular example ofAugusta’s authorship has not been preserved.

Augusta also liked to visit newspaper offices. In May, 1879, shebrought a visitor, “her dainty niece,” Suzie Marston, to see the various departmentsof the Rocky Mountain News. This girl was from Augusta,Maine, the family home-town, after which Augusta had been named.Augusta took her niece on trips around Colorado and in 1889 chaperonedher on a diversified tour of Europe while they traveled with the GeorgeTritches of Denver.

The first Mrs. Tabor’s habit of calling on writers has preserved for usa very fine autobiography. In September of 1883 Mrs. Alice Polk Hill ofDenver, who had lived in Colorado for a decade or so, decided to compilea book by collecting reminiscences and informal bits of history. She spent4several months traveling about the state to obtain material. Sometime priorto the publication of her book in 1884, she arrived in Leadville and stayedat the Clarendon Hotel. Augusta, who was visiting her sister, Mrs. MelvinaL. Clarke, in Leadville at the time, came to call.

Mrs. Hill was delighted and later described Augusta as a “frail, delicate-lookingwoman with pleasing manners.”

More importantly, Mrs. Tabor No. 1 wrote out a detailed account ofher early marriage, much of which Mrs. Hill used in her first book, “Talesof the Colorado Pioneers,” but which has survived intact in the DenverRepublican.

Her romance with Tabor, a Vermont stone-cutter, began in Maine inAugust, 1853, when Augusta L. Pierce was twenty years old and HoraceAustin Warner Tabor was twenty-two. He came to work for her father, acontractor. After a couple of years’ employment he fell in love with theboss’s daughter. A two-year engagement followed while Tabor homesteadeda 160-acre farm in Riley County, Kansas.

“On January 31, 1857, we were married in the room where we firstmet,” Augusta recalled.

Farming in Kansas proved bleak, arduous and lonely for the twenty-four-yearold bride, and unprofitable for her husband. When the news ofgold in Colorado broke, the Tabors joined the rush. On April 5, 1859, theyset out in an ox-drawn covered wagon with two men friends and their sixteen-month-oldbaby son, Maxcy, who was teething. They also took alongseveral cows to provide milk. The journey to Denver took them until June20. They camped there for two weeks because the cattle were footsore, andthen moved to a site near Golden.

Here, the men decided to push on to Gregory Diggings, now CentralCity, and they went afoot since there was no adequate road for a wagon.

“Leaving me and my sick child in the 7 by 9 tent, that my hands hadmade, the men took a supply of provisions on their backs, a few blankets,and bidding me be good to myself, left on the morning of the gloriousFourth. My babe was suffering from fever and I was weak and worn. Myweight was only ninety pounds. How sadly I felt, none but God, in whom Ithen firmly trusted, knew. Twelve miles from a human soul save my babe.The only sound I heard was the lowing of the cattle, and they, poor things,seemed to feel the loneliness of the situation and kept unusually quiet. Everymorning and evening I had a ‘round-up’ all to myself,” Augusta wrote.

After three “long, weary weeks” the men returned. On the 26th ofJuly they again “loded” the wagon and started into the mountains. Travelingby way of Russell Gulch, it took them three weeks to reach Payne’s Bar,now Idaho Springs. She remarked:

“Ours was the first wagon through and I was the first white womanthere, if white I could be called, after camping out three months.”

The men cut logs, laid them up four feet and put the 7 by 9 tent ontop for a roof. Horace went prospecting and Augusta opened a business.She baked bread and pies, gave meals and sold milk from their cows.

5

Horace found no gold, but Augusta was very successful. She madeenough money to buy their unpaid-for farm in Kansas and to keep themthrough the winter in Denver. In February Horace returned to his prospectbut found his claim had been jumped. He decided to go prospecting fartherafield, on the Arkansas, and returned to Denver to make plans.

They traveled by way of Ute Pass and were a month on the road beforethey reached South Park. Now she waxed lyrical.

“I shall never forget my first vision of the park. The sun was just setting.I can only describe it by saying it was one of Colorado’s sunsets.Those who have seen them know how glorious they are. Those who havenot cannot imagine how gorgeously beautiful they are. The park lookedlike a cultivated field with rivulets coursing through, and herds of antelopein the distance.”

After two hazardous crossings of the ice-caked and tumultuous Arkansas,and after several weeks of unsuccessful placering when they could notseparate heavy black particles from the gold, they arrived in CaliforniaGulch. It was May 8, 1860.

“The first thing after camping was to have the faithful old oxenbutchered that had brought us all the way from Kansas—yes, from theMissouri River three years before. We divided the meat with the miners inthe gulch, for they were without provisions or ammunition.”

Once again Augusta was the first woman in the camp, and once againthe men built her a primitive log cabin. This one had a sod roof, no window,and a dirt floor. She promptly went into business and Horace went6prospecting. As the Tabors were the only people in the upper end of thegulch who owned a gold-scales, Augusta added weighing dust to her dutiesof taking boarders and doing laundry. In a few weeks ten thousand menwere crowded in the gulch, and a mail and express office was needed.Augusta was appointed postmistress of Oro City.

“I was very happy that summer,” she added.

By September 20th Horace had accumulated $5,000 in gold dust fromhis claim. He gave $1,000 worth of this dust to Augusta, and she preparedto leave the mountains to spend the winter with her father and mother.

“I put my wardrobe, what there was of it, in a carpet bag, and tookpassage with a mule train that was going to the Missouri River. I was fiveweeks in crossing and cooked for my board.”

(Horace and Maxcy also went to Maine that winter but Augusta didnot mention this.)

“With that $1,000, I purchased 160 acres of land in Kansas, adjoiningthe tract we already owned. My folks dressed me up, and in the spring Ibought a pair of mules and a wagon in St. Joe to return with, which tookabout all my money.”

Horace spent the $4,000 that was left of the gold dust for flour in Iowaon the way back. In the spring they opened a store in Augusta’s cabin.While he mined the claim, Augusta waited on customers and raised her son.She even transported gold to Denver on horseback for the express office. Inorder to fool highway robbers, Tabor carried a small amount of gold, whilelarge amounts were hidden under her skirts enjoying the protection ofchivalry to ladies! That summer of 1861 the store was more profitable thanmining because the easy placer gold was nearly played out.

7

8

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The camp fell off rapidly and by autumn was practically deserted. TheTabors decided to try the other side of the Mosquito Range and the boomingcamp of Buckskin Joe. Again they opened a store and again it wasselected as the post office. Horace had no better luck with mining in SouthPark than in Oro and so resigned himself to their small business venture.

But he still dreamt of bonanzas and hopefully grubstaked pennilessprospectors. The agreement was that in return for supplies, which he gavethem, they would share any rich finds. Augusta viewed the practice withdisfavor.

When the Printer Boy mine was expanded in 1868 in CaliforniaGulch, the Tabors moved back to Oro City. This time they erected a four-roomlog cabin about a mile above the present site of Leadville and settleddown to their usual routine of running a general store. For ten more years,bringing the total to eighteen, Augusta kept at her labors and Horacecherished his dreams.

As the years passed, Augusta’s natural New England frankness grewmore tart. She found Horace’s easy-going ways irritating. His off-hand generositiesmade no sense to a woman who knew the value of a hard-earneddollar. Or, perhaps, some psychic intuition warned Augusta that that verysame trait would bring her eventual heart-break, and she was trying subconsciouslyto ward off the blow.

The blow came disguised as good fortune. In 1877 the news leaked outthat those heavy particles of black sand, which had been so difficult for theplacer miners to separate from gold, were really bits of lead-silver carbonates.A second rush to California Gulch began. The newcomers were silver-seekersand chose the lower part of the gulch in which to settle. The Taborsdecided to move their Oro City store a mile farther down, and selected asite on the south side of Chestnut Street, a door below the Harrison Avenue10corner. They built a story-and-a-half log and frame building with sleepingquarters upstairs, and dining and kitchen arrangements to the rear.

Business boomed. Tabor had to hire two clerks to take care of the postoffice alone. Soon he was forced to open a banking department since heowned an ordinary iron safe which sat outside the counter. Everyone wantedto deposit their cash in his safe. The cashier divided his time betweenthe dry goods and grocery divisions, and the receipt of deposits and writingof exchange. Tabor hired still more clerks and expanded jovially in thebalmy atmosphere of his new importance.

In January, 1878, the settlement comprised some seventy tents, shantiesand log cabins. The inhabitants decided to call a meeting, effect an organizationand choose a name. “Leadville” was selected, although a few peoplethought “Cloud City” was more poetic. A short while afterward they votedTabor to the mayorship, and officially confirmed his year-long office with acity election in April. Tabor was now worth between $25,000 and $30,000.

As sleeping and eating facilities were at a premium, the Tabors decidedto build a residence for themselves, where Augusta could serve meals, andto allow the clerks to sleep above the store. They chose a site at 310 HarrisonAvenue, way off from the settlement, and began to build in the spring.Meanwhile Tabor was handing out grubstakes and still dreaming.

Then the momentous day of his Castles-in-Spain arrived. On Sunday,April 21, 1878, two German prospectors, August Rische and George TheodoreHook, asked him for a stake while Tabor was sorting mail. PostmasterTabor told them to pick out what they needed, and the men chose about $17worth of supplies, mostly groceries. They drew up an agreement that Taborwas entitled to a third of what they found.

A few days later they came back and asked for a second hand-out.They had staked a claim and they needed shovels, a hand-switch, drills andblasting powder to sink a shaft. This brought the total outlay to some $60.

11

Early in May, Augusta was coming downstairs one morning whenAugust Rische burst into the store. As she told the story to Flora Stevens,his hands were full of specimens. He rushed toward her and shouted:

“We’ve struck it! We’ve struck it!”

Augusta said she was rather frigid to him.

“Rische, when you bring me money instead of rocks, then I’ll believeyou.”

But it was true. Their mine, the Little Pittsburgh, netted Tabor $500,000in the following fifteen months. He bought the Chrysolite which provedto be another bonanza. Augusta continued to keep boarders during thesummer and Tabor, to supervise the store’s activities. But then Tabor beganto splurge, and in the autumn they sold out. The fall election had madeTabor lieutenant-governor of Colorado, so they planned to move to Denver.

In January, 1879, Tabor rented, and the next month purchased, theHenry C. Brown house at 17th and Broadway, paying $40,000. Accordingto Augusta, when her husband took her to see it, she was very mindful ofthe quick rises and equally rapid descents of Colorado fortunes. Augustatook one look at her husband’s idea of a new home and said:

“I will never go up these steps, Tabor, if you think I will ever haveto go down them.”

Thirty-five curious callers appeared the first day she was at home. Sheremarked sarcastically:

“I would scarcely know how to return the call of the woman next doorwho arrived in a carriage.”

Tabor provided the means for returning the call. It was a $2,000 carriage,an exact replica of the one driven by the White House coachmanaround Washington.

“La,” she told Flora Stevens, “If we had only had the money that is inthat carriage when we began life.”

Delegations from the various churches also came to call, each seekingthe Tabors’ membership. Augusta remarked:

12

“I suppose Mr. Tabor’s and my souls are of more value than they werea year ago.”

Poor Augusta! Time was running out. Tabor’s answer to her tartnesswas to spend his evenings in the variety halls and bordellos. As his interestsand investments widened, he took the most seductive inmates traveling withhim. The newspapers reported that Tabor had given clothes, jewelry, fursand furbelows to three or four women (one paper said five) so that theycould appear as “Mrs. Tabor.” One that he singled out was Alice Morgan,an Indian club swinger at the Grand Central variety hall in Leadville. Nexthe was charmed by Willie Deville in Lizzie Allen’s parlor house in Chicago,and he brought Willie west with him. Augusta discovered the affair and themiscreants promised to part.

But this was a ruse. Tabor kept on seeing her secretly and took Willieon a trip to New York. There, she was so indiscreet about their relationsthat a woman in the hotel tried to blackmail the Silver King. Tabor toldWillie she talked too much and made her a gift of $5,000 to soften the blowof saying “good-bye.” (Augusta preserved an interview, with many moredetails than these, that Willie gave to a St. Louis reporter a couple of yearsafter the affair. Apparently, Willie was still talking too much.)

In September, 1879, Tabor sold out his interest in the Little Pittsburghfor a cool million dollars. He bought the Matchless for $117,000 (whichlater proved the greatest bonanza of all) and over 800 shares of stock of theFirst National Bank in Denver. Then he and Augusta went East for sixweeks while he made further investments, notably land in South Chicago.

13

On November 5 the Tabors returned to Denver and Horace left forLeadville to see to the completion and opening of the Tabor Opera House.Augusta remained in Denver. Tabor did not return even for Christmas. Hisbachelor suite on the second floor of the Opera House (with its handy passagewayacross to Bill Bush’s Clarendon Hotel) proved too delightful for aman whose eyes wandered.

Augusta and he began to quarrel more violently. During 1880 they appearedtogether at balls of the Tabor Hose Co. in Denver and of the TaborLight Cavalry in Leadville, and when Tabor entertained ex-President andMrs. Grant in the “Cloud City.” The two couples sat together in the left-handbox for the second act of “Ours,” and then left to attend a ball in thegeneral’s honor. This was July 23, 1880, a momentous date for forty-seven-yearold Augusta—not because she had met a president, but because justabout that time Horace ceased to be her husband.

In the autumn, back in Denver, Horace gave her $100,000, followinghis usual practice of making a parting gift. In January, 1881, Tabor leftthe Broadway mansion irrevocably and established residence in a suite atthe Windsor Hotel of which he was part-owner.

What had happened was that, some time during the spring or summeron one of his frequent trips to Leadville, Tabor had met “Baby” Doe. Shewas twenty-five and he was forty-nine. They were introduced by Bill Bushwho had known the Dresden-doll beauty as Mrs. Harvey Doe during hertwo-and-a-half year residence in Central City. Bill Bush had been proprietorof the Teller House and had also known her husband and in-laws.She had obtained a divorce from Harvey Doe in March, 1880, for adulteryand non-support, and shortly after arrived in Leadville.

Baby Doe said that it was “love at first sight” on her part. With Tabor,the feeling grew on him. She became his mistress almost immediately, butit was not until January, 1881, that he began to think of divorce and re-marriage.Augusta put her foot down. She refused successive overtures ofa handsome settlement in return for a divorce.

Augusta knew what was going on. In December, 1880, she bought athird interest in the Windsor Hotel from Charles L. Hall of Leadville. Theother third was owned by Bill Bush, who also managed the hotel, assistedby her son, Maxcy. In the next months Augusta used her ownership to14check up regularly on activities at the hotel. When Tabor brought Baby Doedown from Leadville and installed her at the Windsor, the two women musthave passed in the lobby frequently.

Augusta realized a fine monthly profit from her Windsor investment,and in April, 1881, she treated herself to a trip abroad for several months.Both Tabor and Bush wanted to buy out her share. Tabor did not like hermaking “such a damned nuisance of herself” going in and out of the rooms,and Bush wanted to obtain a controlling interest in the hotel. Augusta kepton saying, “No.” No divorce and no hotel sale.

When Augusta returned from Europe, she found her husband hadrisen to new heights. He was being considered for a senatorship and he hadfinished building the Tabor Grand Opera House in Denver. The citizenswere tendering a ceremony and watch fob to him on the opening night.

Augusta wrote him a letter apologizing for what she “had said in theheat of passion.” She also asked to be allowed to come to the opening nightof the Tabor Grand and to go with him to Washington as a senator’s wife.This letter turned up among Baby Doe’s papers at her death. No one knowshow, or if, it was answered. But the Tabor box was empty on September 5,1881, the gala occasion Augusta wanted to attend.

In April, 1882, Augusta instituted a suit for payment of $50,000 ayear alimony despite the fact that she was not divorced. She listed Tabor’sholdings and their specific worth, an impressive tabulation, which broughtthe total to $9,410,000. The suit caused a lot of scandal, damaged Taborpolitically, but accomplished nothing for Augusta since it was thrown outof court as illegal.

Augusta gave in on the hotel-sale petition first. She sold her interest inthe Windsor to Bush for close to $40,000 in May, 1882. Finally, on January2, 1883, she gave Tabor a divorce in exchange for property worth about$300,000. She caused a sensation at the divorce trial by reiterating:

“Not willingly, Oh God, not willingly!”

15

It was this public statement of hers to the judge which made her feelthat the divorce was not valid.

Amos Steck, Augusta’s lawyer, summed up the whole five years ofpublic quarreling and scandal when he talked about her to a reporter:

“Oh, she knows all about his practises with lewd women. I never sawsuch a woman. She is crazy about Tabor. She loves him and that settles it.”

For years Augusta hoped that Baby Doe would tire of Horace and,crestfallen, he would come back to his first wife. She thought that when themoney was gone, the young hussy would flit. She told reporters she wasbuilding up her own fortune and hanging on to her large house in orderthat she might take care of Tabor in his old age.

But Augusta was wrong. She had underestimated her rival. When theSilver Panic of 1893 reduced the former millionaire to poverty, his prettyblonde wife stuck like glue.

Belatedly Augusta realized the true character of Baby Doe. In 1892the first Mrs. Tabor sold her house on Broadway and moved across thestreet to the newly-opened Brown Palace Hotel. Although Maxcy and BillBush were the managers and lived there also, Augusta did not enjoy hotellife. Her health was starting to fail and she went to California for thewinter, seeking a milder climate. There in Pasadena, on February 1, 1895,at the age of sixty-two she died, her social position still secure, if notshowy, and her fortune built to a million and a half dollars.

She said in her own words when Tabor was at his richest:

“I feel that in those early years of self-sacrifice, hard labor, and economy,I laid the foundation for Mr. Tabor’s immense wealth. Had I notstayed with him and worked by his side, he would have been discouraged,returned to the stone-cutting trade and so lost his big opportunity.”

All Colorado agreed with her at the time—and then the mills of theGods ground slowly and exceedingly fine. Tabor’s immense wealth evaporated.

But its going did not bring Horace back to her; he clung to Baby Doeuntil the end, four years after Augusta’s death. Never once was there theslightest rumor of any infidelity of his to her after 1881 and none of BabyDoe to him after their first meeting. It must have been galling to Augusta.

Maxcy Tabor inherited the money his mother had husbanded withsuch business acumen. He brought her body back from California and shewas buried in Riverside cemetery. With the passage of the years Maxcy waslaid to rest in Fairmount beside his wife; and Horace Tabor, in Mt. Olivetbeside Baby Doe. Augusta lies alone in an old-fashioned cemetery, as aloneas she lived her last fifteen years, terribly alone.

For many years of her middle life Augusta was called “Leadville’sFirst Lady.” The nickname was spoken in affection and in admiration, andshe was interviewed for the Leadville papers under that heading. Yes, shewas a first lady in many ways, courageous and industrious and civic. Thetragedy of her life lay in the fact that, although she was beloved of many,she lost the key to the only heart she wanted.

16

Acknowledgments

(Reprinted from earlier editions for the fifth in 1968)

For Research Aid:

First, as always, to the patient staff of the Western History Departmentof the Denver Public Library—Ina T. Aulls, Alys Freeze,Opal Harber and Katherine Hawkins—who find the answers tomany puzzlers. Secondly, Agnes Wright Spring, Colorado historian,always generous; and helpful others at the State Museum—DoloresRenze, Frances Shea, Dorothy Stewart and Kenneth Watson.Next, Lorena Jones and Allen Young of The Denver Postlibrary, unfailingly obliging. My gratitude to all.

For Photographs and Sketches:

The Western History Department of the Denver Public Libraryhas supplied the great majority of the illustrations used. The ColoradoHistorical Society contributed two photographs; the OshkoshPublic Museum, one; Mrs. Belle Taylor, two; the Mile High Center,one; and one gift of Fred Mazzulla was graciously rehabilitatedby Phil Slattery and Bill Brown of The Denver Post.

For Proofreading:

Mrs. J. Alvin Fitzell continues to donate her time and aptitude forcatching typographical errors in each successive booklet.

By the Same Author

Gulch of Gold: Her affection for and pride in Gregory Gulch shows inevery line of this book.... The old photographs and maps are entrancing....Marshall Sprague in the New York Times.

Colorful Colorado: Its Dramatic History: “... a remarkable feat ofcondensation ... ought to be a copy in your car’s glove locker.”Robert Perkin in the Rocky Mountain News.

Unique Ghost Towns: “This new Bancroft Booklet is the best yet.”Stanton Peckham in The Denver Post.

The Unsinkable Mrs. Brown: “Caroline Bancroft’s booklets arebrighter, better-illustrated and cheaper than formal histories ofColorado.... The Unsinkable Mrs. Brown was a delightful person,and I wish I had known her.”John J. Lipsey in the Colorado Springs Free Press.

The Brown Palace in Denver: “Miss Bancroft has a sure touch andthis new title adds another wide-selling item to her list.”Don Bloch in Roundup.

Denver’s Lively Past: “With zest and frankness the author emphasizesthe dramatic, lusty, bizarre and spicy happenings.”Agnes Wright Spring in The Denver Post.

Historic Central City: “We could do with more such stories of Colorado’sfabled past.”Marian Castle in The Denver Post.

Famous Aspen: “It’s all here.... Aspenites should be grateful.”Luke Short in The Aspen Times.

Silver Queen: The Fabulous Story of Baby Doe Tabor: “Attractive,sprightly, well-printed book ... which is more informative andgenuinely human than preceding works giving the Tabor story.”Fred A. Rosenstock in The Brand Book.

Tabor’s Matchless Mine and Lusty Leadville: “Seventh in her seriesof Bancroft Booklets retelling segments of Colorado’s history.They are popularly written, color-packed little pamphlets, and it’sa pleasure to commend them to native and tourist alike.”Robert Perkin in the Rocky Mountain News.

Six Racy Madams of Colorado: “This delightful booklet is writtenboth with good humor and good taste.”Rocky Mountain News.

Colorado’s Lost Gold Mines and Buried Treasure: “The casualreader ... will find his own treasure buried in this little booklet.”Claude Powe in The Central City Tommy-Knawker.

(See back cover for prices)

GULCH OF GOLD

A fictionized history, reading like a novel but of the soundest research,picturing the stories of colorful characters who started the state,with over 100 photos and maps. Hard cover book. $6.25

COLORFUL COLORADO: ITS DRAMATIC HISTORY

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UNIQUE GHOST TOWNS AND MOUNTAIN SPOTS

Forty-two of Colorado’s romance-packed high-country towns havetheir stories, told with old and new photos, history and maps. $2.00.

THE UNSINKABLE MRS. BROWN

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SILVER QUEEN: THE FABULOUS STORY OF BABY DOE TABOR

Her love affair caused a sensational triangle and a national scandalin the ’Eighties. Illustrated. $1.50.

TABOR’S MATCHLESS MINE AND LUSTY LEADVILLE

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Transcriber’s Notes

• Copyright notice provided as in the original—this e-text is public domain in the country of publication.
• Silently corrected palpable typos; left non-standard spellings and dialect unchanged.
• In the text versions, delimited italicized text by _underscores_.

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