Caroline Bancroft

“ Although she epitomized a roistering era and a swashbuckling way of life made possible by the mining frontier of Colorado, the granite gloom of those powerful mountains has forever lowered the curtain on her dramatic period and on the valiant, if mistaken, spirit of Baby Doe Tabor. In relegating both, and their final evaluation, to the pages of history, the lines inscribed on the stage drop of the Tabor Opera House recur, ever again, emphasizing their fatal prophecy:
So fleet the works of men, back to the earth again,
Ancient and holy things fade like a dream. ”

“ My great husband, Tabor, could not have spoken other than truthfully and prophetically from his deathbed and if I was to live true to his command, I must always believe.
“I have no reason for living if I do not have faith in the Matchless. No dear one is left to me. I have only this one legacy of my great love. It is my mission and my life,” were the thoughts that ran through my head as I left the banker’s office. But now I had exhausted my last resource. No future was ahead of me, no work to do and no place to live. The mine was doomed—and my heart sank to the lowest depths. ”

“ The main street was crowded with women going to market on foot, carpet bags or carry-alls slung on their arm for supplies, some of them leading burros to pack their purchases. Most of the bars were open and men, off work at the mines, idled in and out or lounged briefly in the strangely bright Colorado sunshine of this mild day. Others were to be seen on doorsteps, chewing tobacco, chatting or whittling on an old wheel spoke. The banks were open for business and cashiers from the mines were taking in gold dust, nuggets and retorts to be weighed. ”

“ I have never admitted my hurt, even to intimates. Before the world, I have always preserved the outline of her fabrication. Silver is alive today. She is in a convent.
The winter dragged miserably in and I was even poorer. My boots wore out and I hit upon the scheme of wrapping my legs in gunny sack, like puttees, held with twine; a habit I have always held to. Only dreams and memories were left to sustain the poverty and dreariness of my life. Now I was completely down.
But catastrophes never come singly and it was also that winter that the Matchless was again to be foreclosed. ”

“ I had lost everything—everything in the world that I prized—my dear husband, money, prominence, all my fineries, jewelry and the many little luxuries a woman loves, my brother, my family, my first daughter—and now Silver! ”

“ Tabor went to her death with a delusion about the Matchless Mine.
She had lived during the last years of her life largely through the charity of the citizens of Leadville and the company that held the mortgage on the Matchless. The mine had produced no ore in years and was not really equipped to work, although she could not find it in her soul to admit the harsh fact of reality. She dressed in mining clothes and off and on during the last twenty years made a pretense of getting out ore with a series of men she inveigled to work on shares. ”

“ The steady rhythm of pumps and the whir of steam hoists resounded from each hill. You could even hear the narrow gauge railroad whistle at Blackhawk shrieking its demoniac energy while bringing in machinery, huge and unwieldy, 23 for the hoists of mine shafts, for the stamp mills crunching ore, and a hundred other purposes. Near its track at many points were sluice boxes carrying water back to the creek after being denuded of its placer wealth. Everywhere were serious men busy making money. ”

“ When we started for Colorado’s great gold camps, I was tremendously stirred and elated. I had been listening avidly to the many tales of untold fortunes already made from the district’s famous “blossom rock.” I was sure that ours was the next treasure tale that would come out of Central City to be told over the massive bars of Larimer Street—the story of how clever Harvey Doe had presented his beautiful bride with a gold mine that would make her a millionaire only a few months after they were married! ”

“ I had lived all my grown-up life with miners. I could not believe, even if the rich vein of our fortune had thinned, that the pay ore would not widen again a little further on. I had implicit faith in my husband and his judgment. I have always had implicit faith in the Matchless. But sometimes it has been hard to make others understand.
When I had no visible effect on these men, I turned to Tabor and said: “Well, lets make a game of it.” ”

“ Each time the clouds would seems to have a silver lining, it would prove only a figment of my imagination or a mirage of the Cloud City (Leadville’s nickname) . A silver mine in the Cloud City should certainly have some lining!
“Why don’t you give up? Let the mine go for the mortgage?” a Denver banker to whom I appealed for help said to me. “It’s all worked out—and anyway it’s paid you a small steady income for years.”
“I should say not!” I replied with vehemence. “I shall never let the Matchless go—not while there is breath in my body to find a way to fight for it. The mine is a Golconda.” ”

“ Tabor had left home unequivocally in January, but as he was on so many frequent trips to New York, Chicago or Leadville, where he stayed was really not noticed until that autumn.
At the festive opening night of the Tabor Grand Opera House, with Emma Abbott singing Lucia, Box A of the six fashion boxes was conspicuously empty. That was the box Tabor had reserved for himself and family. It was wreathed in flowers and a huge pendant of roses hung above it. He was on the stage or in the wings waiting for the ceremony of dedication. ”

“ I could not make him share my belief that Tabor would recoup everything. In my innermost heart, I knew he would. But here was a new kind of man in Colorado who did not look at life the way the first-comers did. Those men were plungers, gay and generous. When they had money, they spent it and when they didn’t, they had the bravery to start out on new ventures and make other fortunes. When a friend was down, they loaned him more than he needed and forgot the loan. That was Tabor. But not these newcomers who were settling and growing prosperous in Colorado. ”

“ When he heard of Tabor’s plight, he wrote him a check for $15,000 to use in developing his Eclipse mine in Boulder County.
“There’s a true friend,” Tabor remarked with touching humility. It wrung me to the quick to see him act like this, pathetic and almost beaten. When he had had money, and even in the days before I knew him and before he became rich, his generosity and honesty had been proverbial. In return, the world gave him only deceit and niggardliness—and a cold shoulder. Many a night I wept with secret rage at the world as much as sorrow for Tabor. ”

“ Harvey replied heatedly. “We haven’t got the money to fulfill the agreement of timbering in a ‘good, substantial, workmanlike manner’—and besides, it’s too long a gamble. I don’t know enough about carpentry and mining. It’s better for me to learn what I’m about first by taking a steady job. Then, when I know more, and maybe have saved up some money of our own, we can try developing the mine.”
I thought this plan was cowardly and stupid. Maybe development would be a long gamble, but all mining was a gamble—even life was a gamble—and only those who had the courage to play could win. ”

“ Why, with your looks, you could get any man you wanted!” one of them said to me.
Most of the talk at the Shoo-Fly that summer and autumn was about the sensational rise of silver and Leadville and Horace Tabor. It was like a fairy tale. For years, placer miners at the head of the Arkansas River had been irritated by peculiar black sand which was very heavy and could not be separated from the gold easily. A decade passed without their recognizing its true worth but during the ’70s several miners worked on secret assays which proved the sand was eroding from carbonates of lead and silver ore. ”

“ Tabor was very hurt at this, the more so because there seemed to be an element of truth in her words. The attitude toward him in Leadville had changed and Tabor really loved that mining camp—it was always “home” to him, much more than Denver. And in later years, I felt the same way, although just then I was eager to conquer fresh fields.
“Never mind,” I said. “I’m sure she’s wrong—and besides what do you care about that ugly old mining camp? You’re a big man going to do the biggest things for the nation. And what if Governor Pitkin doesn’t like you? ”

“ The swaggering frontier bravery was all around. It resounded in the dangerous felling of pines, the perilous running of logs, the great lumber barges with their snarling bargemen floating through the middle of the town into beautiful Lake Winnebago. Seventeen sawmills, six shingle mills, and three planing mills 9 buzzed and whirred constantly. In these, many friends and acquaintances were amassing great lumber fortunes.
Today the forests have been cut back into the northern part of the state. But at that time Oshkosh was at the outlet of the Wolf pinery. ”

“ The boardwalks on each side of the street were filled with a seething mass of humanity that had sprung from every quarter of the globe and from every walk of life. Stalwart teamsters jostled bankers from Chicago. Heavy-hooted grimy miners, fresh from underground workings, shared a walk with debonair salesmen from Boston. The gambler and bunco-steerer strolled arm in arm with their freshest victim picked up in a hotel lobby.
I had bought “The Tourist Guide to Colorado and Leadville,” written by Cass Carpenter in May of that year. ”

“ Roaring and crackling, the lumber piles by the river went up in flames like match-boxes. Immediately the street became bedlam. Everybody tore towards their stores to try to save their stocks of goods. Breathless, terror-stricken, we ran behind Papa toward our own store, where he and his partner, Mr. Cameron, loaded us with goods to stow in the buggy. All Main street was wild. Someone rushed up and tried to grab our team’s bridles and lead them off. ”

“ Or perhaps “the old lady,” as he spoke of her, had sold it to get enough to eat and had forgotten the transaction in the forgetfulness of what mountaineers call “cabin fever,” a strangeness that overtakes elderly people who live alone.
I was not so interested in the mining aspects of her situation as my father (who was always avid on the scent of ore—gold, silver, copper, tungsten, and at the end, rare minerals such as vanadium, molybdenum, uranium, titanium and tantalum) . What interested me about Mrs. Tabor were her looks and her personality. ”

“ Through Tabor’s prominence in Denver and Leadville, I met and entertained many men interested in politics. The famous beauties, Lily Langtry and Lillian Russell, and other well-known figures of the nineteenth century stage such as Sara Bernhardt, Mme. Modjeska, John Drew, Augustin Daly, William Gillette, Edwin Booth, and Otis Skinner frequently played at the Tabor Opera House, and Tabor and I would entertain them at champagne suppers after their performances. They always seemed to like me and would ask to see me on our fairly frequent visits to New York. ”

“ Tabor’s other holdings which had sounded so spectacular and so promising on paper, turned out, many of them, to be literally paper. He had been duped or cheated by associates and friends for years without either of us realizing it. Some of his real estate was already mortgaged, and, when the blow first fell, he mortgaged the rest. Afterward we learned what a mistake that was. We should have learned to economize immediately.
But none of the mining men believed the hard times would last. Ten Denver banks failed in three days during July and our cash went when they crashed. ”

“ The original edition was in the nature of a real gamble. In my mind the Tabor story had already received more than adequate attention in three books and countless articles, not to mention many fictional treatments and one movie. My work seemed rather supernumerary.
But this booklet had two virtues. In the other histories Baby Doe had been given the brush-off; as a floosy, when young, and a freak, when old. The other authors gave their sympathy to Augusta, and their research was not too painstaking. My booklet was based on what reporters call “leg-work.” ”

“ To be truthful, these sporting women were the aristocracy of the camp since nice married women whose husbands had not found bonanzas, spent the day in backbreaking work at washtubs or over hot stoves and were too tired in the evening to do anything but sleep.
One night Jake had gone over to Wyman’s to gamble and I was left to entertain myself. Feeling hungry toward the middle of the evening and being 37 fond of oysters, I crossed Harrison Avenue to the old Saddle Rock Cafe which stood a block down from the Clarendon hotel and Tabor Opera house. ”

“ I knew Tabor’s dearest possession, next to the Matchless mine, was the Tabor Grand Opera House. When the mortgage owners gave notice of foreclosure on that, I went personally to plead with young Horace Bennett for an extension of time and leniency.
“We millionaires must all stick together,” I said.
He regarded me with cold blue eyes and replied:
“I am not a millionaire, Mrs. Tabor, and this is a business transaction. I appreciate how you and Mr. Tabor have sentimental feelings about the Opera House. ”

“ Tabor said that night, elated as a school boy. “That’ll be something for Augusta to swallow about the man she thinks she can keep tied down! It’s also a good precaution for those scandal mongers at the senate. If they get too nosey, we’ll show them we’re really married.”
I tried to pretend I was as happy as he. But to me, a marriage was only binding when it had been sanctioned by the church and performed by a priest. And I knew Papa would only forgive my transgressions on that basis. I had drifted very far away from much of Father Bonduel’s teachings but the kernel still remained. ”

“ If someone knocks, I peek out the corner of the window (which was once shaded by coarse lace, then burlap and finally newspapers) , lifting just a tiny flap so as to show only one eye. If they see me and recognize me, I say I’m taking a bath—and I have been known to give that same answer all day long to a series of callers!
Sometimes I alter my voice and say, “Mrs. Tabor is downtown—I am the night watchman,” (as I did when Sue Bonnie was making her first efforts to meet me) and sometimes I just sit as quiet as a mossy stone, pretending the cabin is uninhabited. ”

“ Gathering up my skirts, I flew into the yard like a wildcat.
“The idea of your doing this to Tabor! The man who gave Denver its beautiful Opera House! The man who has done much more for this town than ever it deserved. He’s invested large sums in your very own business and helped most of your own officers to political positions. Why, this is an outrage!”
“Orders is orders,” they replied belligerently, and went on with their work.
“Well, just wait until Congress changes that ridiculous law about silver and the Matchless is running again! ”