Horace Tabor
When you say “TABOR” to Coloradans today, they might first think of the Taxpayer Bill of Rights. But the word is more than an acronym. It’s a nod to Horace Tabor, who came to Leadville in the late 1850s to strike it rich. After two decades of backbreaking work and grinding poverty, Tabor hit a mother lode of silver. He invested the profits in other successful mines, and quickly became one of the richest men in Colorado, and lieutenant governor and (briefly) US Senator. When he left his wife to marry the much younger “Baby Doe” in a lavish wedding in Washington DC, it was national news, and a disgrace back in Denver. Then came financial ruin in the Panic of 1893. Horace crawled back to the mines as a laborer, hoping for another big strike that never came. He died penniless in 1899. But ten thousand people attended the funeral of the “Silver King,” Horace Tabor.
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