Editing Leadville, Colorado (section)

==History==

===Settlement===
[[File:Leadville, from California Gulch, by Thurlow, J., 1831-1878.jpg|thumb|Leadville, as viewed from California Gulch - early photo, date unknown]]

The Leadville area was first settled in 1859 when [[Placer deposit|placer]] [[gold]] was discovered by A. G. Kelley in [[California Gulch]], and by Abe Lee in April (25/26) 1860,<ref name="Blair 1995">{{Cite book |last=Blair |first=Edward |title=Leadville: Colorado's Magic City |publisher=Fred Pruett Books |year=1995 |isbn=978-0962386893}}</ref> during the [[Pikes Peak Gold Rush]].<ref name="LeadvilleCGS">{{cite web | url=http://coloradogeologicalsurvey.org/mineral-resources/historic-mining-districts/lake-county/leadville/ | title=Leadville | publisher=Colorado Geological Survey | access-date=July 28, 2015 | url-status=dead | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150905184441/http://coloradogeologicalsurvey.org/mineral-resources/historic-mining-districts/lake-county/leadville/ | archive-date=September 5, 2015 }}</ref><ref name="Leadville's tale" /> Prospectors panned for gold in the stream that ran through California Gulch in what became the town of [[Oro City, Colorado|Oro City]] (''oro'' is the Spanish word for gold).<ref name="Leadville's tale">{{Cite web |date=May 18, 1969 |title=Leadville's Tale is Born with Discovery of Silver |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/109713681/leadvilles-tale-is-born-with-discovery/ |access-date=September 17, 2022 |website=Colorado Springs Gazette-Telegraph |pages=86}}</ref> [[Horace Tabor]], who became known as the "Leadville Silver King", and his wife [[Augusta Tabor|Augusta]] were among the first prospectors to arrive in Oro City. Horace was appointed as the [[postmaster]] of Oro City on November 30, 1868.<ref name="Blair 1995"/> His wife made money as postmistress, banker, cook, and laundress while Tabor was a prospector.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Leadville, Colorado – Cloud City USA – Legends of America |url=https://www.legendsofamerica.com/co-leadville/ |access-date=September 17, 2022 |website=www.legendsofamerica.com}}</ref>

The early miners had noted that mining for placer gold was hampered by heavy black sand in the [[sluice box]]es, and in 1874 it was discovered that the heavy sand that impeded gold recovery was the [[lead]] mineral [[cerussite]], which has a high [[silver]] content. Prospectors traced the cerussite to its source, present day Leadville, and by 1876 had discovered several silver-lead [[lode]] deposits.<ref name="LeadvilleCGS"/><ref name="Legends of America1">{{cite web | url=http://www.legendsofamerica.com/co-leadville.html | title=Leadville - Cloud City USA | access-date=July 27, 2014 | url-status=live | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140702043009/http://www.legendsofamerica.com/co-leadville.html | archive-date=July 2, 2014 }}</ref> As the gold has been tapped out of the gulch and attention was averted to nearby Leadville, a mile or two away, Oro City became a ghost town.<ref name="Leadville's tale" />

===Founding of Leadville===
[[File:Leadville Colorado by Boston & Ziegler c1880.png|thumb|Leadville, circa 1880, with the Eighth Avenue Motel in center of photo, and mining works visible on hill beyond Leadville.]]
[[File:Bird's eye view of Leadville, Colo. 1882 - DPLA - ec26e801e190a9011bc35b19820ce876.jpg|thumb|Painted bird's eye view of Leadville, 1882]]

Leadville was founded in 1877 by mine owners Horace Tabor and [[August Meyer]] at the start of the [[Colorado Silver Boom]]. Tabor's house was also built in 1877, at 116 E. 5th Street.<ref name="Buys 2007">{{Cite book |last=Buys |first=Christian |title=Historic Leadville in Rare Photographs & Drawings |publisher=Western Reflections |year=2007 |isbn=9781890437084}}</ref> The town was built on desolate flat land below the [[tree line]]. The first miners lived in a rough tented camp near the silver deposits in California Gulch.<ref name="Nomination Form">{{cite web | url= {{NRHP url|id=66000248}} | format = pdf |title= National register of historic places inventory Nomination form|publisher = National Park Service| access-date=July 28, 2015}}</ref> Initially, the settlement was called "Slabtown", but when the residents petitioned for a post office, the name "Leadville" was chosen. By 1880, Tabor and Meyer's new town had gas lighting, water mains, {{convert|28|mi}} of streets, five churches, three hospitals, six banks, and a school for 1,100 students. Many business buildings were constructed with bricks hauled in by wagons.<ref name="Denver and Rio Grande">{{cite web | url=http://www.ghostdepot.com/rg/mainline/tennessee%20route/leadville%20history.htm | title=Leadville District History | publisher=Denver and Rio Grande | access-date=August 26, 2015 | url-status=dead | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150924022053/http://www.ghostdepot.com/rg/mainline/tennessee%20route/leadville%20history.htm | archive-date=September 24, 2015 }}</ref> <!-- But census states roughly 18.000, see below!-->

In early 1878, Meyer, along with Leadville's pioneer smelter entrepreneur, Edwin Harrison, after whom the famed Harrison Avenue is named,<ref name="Leadville Today">{{cite web | url=https://www.leadvilletoday.com/2020/05/05/turning-the-corner-in-leadville-today/ | title=Turning The Corner in Leadville Today | date=May 5, 2020 | publisher=Leadville Today | access-date=May 5, 2020 }}</ref> and Tabor established a post office in Leadville, with George L. Henderson designated as postmaster on July 16, 1877.<ref name="Blair 1995"/> The post office and the telegraph office both prospered, with Tabor serving as postmaster from February 19 to December 13, 1878. It was said that the Leadville post office was the busiest one between St. Louis and San Francisco.<ref name="Blair 1995"/> In 1878, the town's first hospital, St. Vincent's, was opened.

The town's first newspaper was ''The Reveille'', a [[Republican Party (United States)|Republican]] weekly, in 1878. Three months later, a competing [[Democratic Party (United States)|Democratic]] weekly, ''The Eclipse'', emerged. ''The Chronicle'' was the town's first daily and first newspaper in America to employ a full-time female reporter. Like the ''[[Rocky Mountain News]]'', ''The Chronicle'' took the lead in outing criminals and thieves, in an attempt to clean up the town's shady business culture. Despite violent threats, the ''Chronicle'' survived without major incident.

William Nye opened the first [[Western saloon|saloon]] in 1877, and it was followed by many others. The same year the Coliseum Novelty was the first theater to open. It offered sleeping rooms upstairs for a nightly rate and provided a variety of entertainments: dancing girls, dogfights, cockfighting, wrestling and boxing matches, and rooms for gambling. In June 1881, it burned to the ground. Ben Wood, who arrived in Leadville in 1878, opened the first legitimate theater, Wood's Opera House, with a thousand seats. It was a first-class theater, where gentleman removed their hats and did not smoke or drink in the presence of a lady. Less than a year later, Wood opened the Windsor Hotel. His opera house was regarded as the largest and best theater constructed in the [[Western United States|West]], an honor it held until the opening of the [[Tabor Opera House]]. Horace Tabor's Opera House was the most costly structure in Colorado at the time. Building materials were brought by wagons from Denver. The massive three-story opera house, constructed of stone, brick, and iron, opened on November 20, 1879. Tabor, originally from [[Vermont]], became the town's first mayor. After striking it rich, he had an estimated net worth of 10 million dollars and was known for his extravagant lifestyle. In February 1879 the Lake County seat was moved to Leadville, where it has remained ever since.<ref name="Blair 1995"/> In 1879, An impressive courthouse was built on the west side of Harrison Avenue, joined by a new post office that same year.<ref name="Buys 2007"/> Telephone service was introduced by Western Union on May 15, 1879, and gas lighting downtown was installed on November 18 that same year.<ref name="Blair 1995"/> Billings and Eilers Smelter installed a generator and lights for the town on May 13, 1881. On May 19, 1882, a large fire broke out at the corner of Harrison Avenue and East Chestnut.<ref name="Buys 2007"/>
[[Image:Matchless mine.jpg|thumb|Matchless mine and Baby Doe Tabor cabin]]

Horace Tabor divorced his wife of 25 years and married [[Baby Doe Tabor|Baby Doe McCourt]] on September 30, 1882,<ref name="Buys 2007"/> who was half his age. Tabor was by then a [[United States Senate|US senator]], and the divorce and marriage caused a scandal in Colorado and beyond. For several years, the couple lived a lavish lifestyle in a Denver mansion, but Tabor, one of the wealthiest men in Colorado, lost his fortune when the repeal of the [[Sherman Silver Purchase Act]] caused the [[Panic of 1893]]. He died on April 10, 1899, of appendicitis,<ref name="Blair 1995"/> destitute but remained convinced that the price of silver would rebound. According to legend, he told Baby Doe to "hold on the Matchless mine{{nbsp}}... it will make millions again when silver comes back." She returned to Leadville with her daughters, Silver Dollar and Lily, where she spent the rest of her life believing Tabor's prediction. At one time the "best dressed woman in the West", she lived in a cabin at the Matchless Mine for the last three decades of her life. On March 7, 1935, after a snowstorm, she was found frozen in her cabin, aged about 81 years.<ref name="Blair 1995"/>

===Mining and smelting===
{{Leadville mining}}
[[File:Gold-d06-206a.jpg|thumb|upright|Crystalline [[gold]] specimen from the Little Johnny Mine, Breece Hill, [[Leadville mining district]]]]

Mining in the Leadville area began in 1859 when prospectors discovered gold at the mouth of [[California Gulch]]. By 1872, placer mining in California Gulch yielded more than $2,500,000, roughly {{inflation|US|2500000|1872|r=-6|fmt=eq}}.{{inflation-fn|US}} In 1876, [[black sand]], once considered bothersome to placer gold miners, was discovered to contain lead carbonates, leading to a rush of miners to the area and the founding of the town in 1877. By 1880, Leadville was one of the world's largest and richest silver camps, with a population of more than 15,000. Income from more than thirty mines and ten large [[smelting]] works produced gold, silver, and lead amounting to $15,000,000 annually. The Leadville strike of 1880 was the first major labor conflict in the central Colorado silver boomtown, shutting down most of the area’s mining district from May 26, 1880.<ref name="Blair 1995"/>

According to one historian of the era, "The outpouring of the precious metal from Leadville transformed the struggling Centennial State into a veritable autocrat in the colony of states. As if by magic the rough frontier town of Denver became a metropolis; stately buildings arose on the site of shanties; crystal streams flowed through the arid plains and the desert blossomed and became fruitful. Poverty gave way to the annoyance of wealth and the fame of silver state spread throughout the world."<ref>Conant, p.106</ref>

Swindles were not uncommon in the mining community. When the Little Pittsburg mine was exhausted of its rich ore body, its managers sold their shares while concealing the mine's actual condition from the other stockholders. "Chicken Bill" Lovell dumped a wheelbarrow load of silver-rich ore into a barren pit on his Chrysolite claim in order to sell it to Horace Tabor for a large price. Tabor had the last laugh when his miners dug a few feet farther and discovered a rich ore body. Some time later the manager of the Chrysolite mine fooled an outside mining engineer into overestimating the mine's ore reserves.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.miningswindles.com/html/leadville.html |title=Leadville |website=www.miningswindles.com |access-date=April 28, 2018 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170622214901/http://www.miningswindles.com/html/leadville.html |archive-date=June 22, 2017 }}</ref>

The city's fortunes declined with the repeal of the [[Sherman Silver Purchase Act]] in 1893, although afterwards there was another small gold boom. Mining companies came to rely increasingly on income from the [[lead]] and [[zinc]]. The district is credited with producing over 2.9 million troy ounces of gold, 240 million troy ounces of [[silver]], 1 million short tons of lead, 785 thousand short tons of zinc (discovered in 1911<ref name="Buys 2007"/>), and 53 thousand short tons of copper.<ref>Ogden Tweto (1968), "Leadville district, Colorado", in ''Ore Deposits in the United States 1933/1967'', New York: American Institute of Mining Engineers, p.683.</ref>

A bitter [[Leadville miners' strike|strike by Leadville's hard rock miners]] in 1896–97 led to bloodshed, at least five deaths, and the burning of the Coronado Mine. In a letter to a London business contact, mine owner [[Eben Smith]] wrote, "The strikers got the worst of it in the raid on the Coronado and Emmet [mines], there were 10 or 12 killed; we do not know how many, and a great number wounded; they take care of their wounded the same as the Indians but every now and then a fellow turns up that the rats have been eating or who has gone to decay that we know must have been shot ..."<ref>William Philpott, "The Lessons of Leadville", Colorado Historical Society, 1995, pages 4, 106.</ref>

World War II caused an increase in the demand for [[molybdenum]], used to harden steel. It was mined at the nearby [[Climax mine]], which at one time produced 75 percent of the world's output. By 1980, the Climax Mine was the largest underground mine in the world. Taxes paid by the mine provided Leadville with good schools and libraries and provided employment for many residents. When the market dropped in 1981, Leadville's economy suffered and many people lost their jobs. With little industry other than the tourist trade, most of the former miners left, and the standard of living declined. Climax reopened in 2008 and started production in 2010. It currently is the most efficient mine producing molybdenum in Colorado and is estimated to have a production life of thirty years.<ref name="Colorado Central Magazine1">{{cite web | url=http://cozine.com/2006-june/restarting-climax-the-who-when-and-why/ | title=Restarting Climax: The who, when, and why | date=June 2006 | access-date=July 26, 2014 | author=Voynick, Steve | url-status=live | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140808071817/http://cozine.com/2006-june/restarting-climax-the-who-when-and-why/ | archive-date=August 8, 2014 }}</ref>

The many years of mining left behind substantial contamination of the soil and water and the [[United States Environmental Protection Agency|Environmental Protection Agency]] designated some former mines [[Superfund]] sites, such as [[California Gulch]].<ref>{{cite web |url=https://cumulis.epa.gov/supercpad/cursites/dsp_ssppSiteData1.cfm?id=0801478 |title=Superfund Site Profile &#124; Superfund Site Information &#124; US EPA |access-date=July 5, 2016 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160813233923/https://cumulis.epa.gov/supercpad/cursites/dsp_ssppSiteData1.cfm?id=0801478 |archive-date=August 13, 2016 }}</ref>  As of 2019, the EPA reports:  "A vast majority of the cleanup at the site has been completed, so current risk of exposure is low. Pregnant women, nursing mothers and young children are still encouraged to have their blood-lead levels checked."[https://cumulis.epa.gov/supercpad/cursites/dsp_ssppSiteData2.cfm?id=0801478#Risk]

===Notable historical figures===
As the population boomed, by 1878, Leadville had the reputation as one of the most lawless towns in the [[American frontier|West]]. The first city marshal was run out of town a few days after he was appointed, and his replacement was shot dead within a month by one of his deputies. Fearing the town would be lost to the lawless element, Mayor Horace Tabor sent for [[Mart Duggan]], who was living in Denver, as a replacement. Duggan was well known at the time as a fearless gunfighter. Using strong-arm and lawless tactics, during his two stints as marshal, Duggan brought order to Leadville by 1880 when he stepped down. He was shot and killed in 1888 by an unknown assailant, most likely an enemy he had made when he was a Leadville marshal. Historian Robert Dearment writes, "Mart Duggan was a quick-shooting, hard-drinking, brawling tough Irish man, but he was exactly the kind of man a tough, hard-drinking, quick-shooting camp like Leadville needed in its earliest days. His name is all but forgotten today, but the name "[[Matt Dillon (Gunsmoke)|Matt Dillon]]" is recognized around the world. Such are the vagaries of life."<ref name="Deadly Dozen">{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WuwVBgAAQBAJ&q=mart+duggan+lawman+in+leadville+colorado&pg=PT37 | title=Deadly Dozen | publisher=University of Oklahoma Press | access-date=September 3, 2015 | author=Dearment, Robert K.| date=January 6, 2015 | isbn=9780806185125 }}</ref>

Alice Ivers, better known as [[Poker Alice]], was a card player and dealer of the Old West who learned her trade in Leadville. Born in [[Devonshire, Blackpool|Devonshire]], her family moved to America when she was a small girl. They first settled in [[Virginia]], where she attended an elite girls' boarding school. When she was a teenager, her family moved to Leadville when the silver boom drew hundreds of new residents to the area. At the age of twenty she married a mining engineer who, like many of the men at that time, frequented the numerous gambling halls in Leadville. Alice went along, at first just observing, but eventually she began to sit in on the games as well. After a few years of marriage her husband was killed in a mining accident and she turned to cards to support herself. Alice was attractive, dressed in the latest fashions, and was in great demand as a dealer. Eventually Alice left Leadville to travel the gambling circuit, as was common of the male gamblers of that time. She continued to dress in the latest fashions but took to smoking cigars. Well known throughout the West, gambling halls welcomed her because she was good for business. Alice said that she won more than $250,000 by gambling during her lifetime.<ref name="Legends of America2">{{cite web | url=http://www.legendsofamerica.com/we-pokeralice.html | title=Poker Alice - Famous Frontier Gambler | publisher=Legends of America | access-date=October 30, 2015 | author=Weiser, Kathy | url-status=live | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151026173231/http://www.legendsofamerica.com/we-pokeralice.html | archive-date=October 26, 2015 }}</ref>

In the spring of 1880, [[Texas Jack Omohundro]] and his wife [[Giuseppina Morlacchi]] arrived in Leadville. Morlacchi, a famous Italian prima ballerina who had introduced the [[Can-can]] dance to the United States, performed several plays at the Grand Central Theatre, including Around the World in 80 Days and [[The Black Crook]]. Texas Jack, who had starred in The Scouts of the Prairie with [[Buffalo Bill Cody]] and [[Ned Buntline]], and later in The Scouts of the Plains with Buffalo Bill and [[Wild Bill Hickok]], played shows at the Chestnut Street Theatre. Texas Jack had served in the [[Confederate States Army|Confederate Army]] at age 16<ref>{{Cite web |title=About Texas Jack {{!}} Texas Jack Association |url=https://www.texasjack.org/texas-jack |access-date=January 27, 2024 |website=TexasJackAssociation |language=en}}</ref> and subsequently joined the Tabor Light Guard, a local militia unit. Jack died of [[pneumonia]] on June 28, 1880.  His funeral was held at the Tabor Opera House, and he was buried in Evergreen Cemetery. On September 8, 1908, Texas Jack's best friend and former costar Buffalo Bill Cody visited Leadville with his [[Wild West shows|Wild West Show]] and dedicated the permanent memorial that marks Texas Jack's grave today.  The Texas Jack Association erected highway historical markers on roads in and out of Leadville.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Kerns |first=Matthew |title=Texas Jack: America's First Cowboy Star |publisher=Two Dot |year=2021 |isbn=978-1493055418 |location=Guilford, Connecticut |language=English}}</ref>

In the summer of 1879, American author and illustrator [[Mary Hallock Foote]] arrived in Leadville.<ref name="Blair 1995"/> It is believed her time in Leadville inspired her writing.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Artwork of Mary Hallock Foote |url=https://thenorthstarhouse.org/mhf-artwork/ |access-date=June 20, 2022 |website=The North Star House |language=en-US}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Martinek |first=Marcia  |title=Leadville inspired Hallock Foote's writing |url=https://www.leadvilleherald.com/free_content/article_4f7c6532-5037-11eb-8198-f7bcb930882e.html |date=May 23, 2023 |access-date=May 30, 2024 |website=The Herald Democrat |language=en |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240530204350if_/https://www.leadvilleherald.com/free_content/article_4f7c6532-5037-11eb-8198-f7bcb930882e.html |archive-date=May 30, 2024}}</ref>

In 1882, shortly after the gun fight at the [[O.K. Corral]], [[Doc Holliday]] arrived in Leadville,<ref name="Blair 1995"/> where he dealt [[faro (card game)|faro]]. On August 19, 1884, he shot ex-Leadville policeman Billy Allen, who had threatened him for failing to pay a $5 debt. Despite overwhelming evidence implicating him, a jury found Holliday not guilty of the shooting or attempted murder.<ref name="Colorado Central Magazine2">{{cite web | url=http://cozine.com/2012-may/the-fading-of-a-legend-doc-holliday-in-leadville/ | title=The Fading of a Legend: Doc Holliday in Leadville | publisher=Colorado Central Magazine | date=May 1, 2012 | access-date=September 4, 2015 | author=Price, Charles F. | url-status=live | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304103216/http://cozine.com/2012-may/the-fading-of-a-legend-doc-holliday-in-leadville/ | archive-date=March 4, 2016 }}</ref>

Gunfighter and professional gambler [[Luke Short]] also spent time in Leadville.<ref name="Frontier Gambler">{{cite web | url=http://www.frontiergamblers.com/page44.php | title=Luke Short | publisher=Frontier Gambler | access-date=September 4, 2015 | url-status=usurped | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110505083009/http://www.frontiergamblers.com/page44.php | archive-date=May 5, 2011 }}</ref>

[[Margaret "Molly" Brown]], who became known as "The Unsinkable Molly Brown", moved to Leadville in 1885, when she was 18 years old.<ref name="Blair 1995"/> In 1886 she married a mining engineer who was twelve years older, [[James Joseph Brown]] at the Church of Annunciation.<ref name="Buys 2007"/> The Brown family acquired great wealth in 1893 when Brown was instrumental in the discovery of a substantial gold ore seam at the Little Jonny Mine.

The mine was owned by his employers, the Ibex Mining Company. Margaret Brown became famous because of her survival of the [[Sinking of the RMS Titanic|1912 sinking]] of the [[RMS Titanic|RMS ''Titanic'']], after exhorting the crew of {{nowrap|[[Lifeboats of the RMS Titanic#Boat 6 (port)|Lifeboat No. 6]]}} to return to look for survivors. A [[The Unsinkable Molly Brown (musical)|1960 Broadway musical]] based on her life was produced, along with a [[The Unsinkable Molly Brown (film)|1964 film]] adaptation of the musical, both titled ''The Unsinkable Molly Brown''. Her home in Denver has been preserved as the Molly Brown House Museum.

[[Meyer Guggenheim]] of the [[Guggenheim family]] started out in Leadville in mining and [[smelting]]. The family went on to possess one of the largest fortunes in the world. Family members have become known for their philanthropy in diverse areas such as modern art and aviation, including several [[Guggenheim Museums]].

[[Oscar Wilde]] appeared in April at the Tabor Opera House during his 1882 American [[Aesthetic Movement]] lecture tour.<ref name="Blair 1995"/> The reviews were mixed, and the press satirized Wilde in cartoons as an English [[dandy]] decorated with [[sunflower]]s and [[lilies]], the floral emblems of the Aesthetic Movement. A [[Kansas]] newspaper described the event:

<blockquote>Oscar Wilde's visit to Leadville excited a great deal of interest and curiosity. The Tabor-opera house where he lectured was packed full. It was rumored that an attempt would be made by a number of young men to ridicule him by coming to the lecture in exaggerated costume with enormous sunflowers and lilies and to introduce a number of characters in the costume of the Western "bad men". Probably, however, better counsel prevailed and no disturbance took place.<ref name="Oscar Wilde in America">{{cite web | url=http://www.oscarwildeinamerica.org/lectures-1882/april/0413-leadville.html | title=Oscar Wilde in America | work=A Selected Resource of Oscar Wilde's Visits to America | access-date=3 September 2015 | url-status=live | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150918214406/http://www.oscarwildeinamerica.org/lectures-1882/april/0413-leadville.html | archive-date=18 September 2015 }}</ref></blockquote>

Mayor David H. Dougan invited Wilde to tour the [[Matchless Mine]] and name its new lode "The Oscar". Wilde later recounted a visit to a local saloon, "where I saw the only rational method of art criticism I have ever come across. Over the piano was printed a notice – 'Please do not shoot the pianist. He is doing his best.'"<ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.oscarwildeinamerica.org/lectures-1882/april/0413-leadville.html | title=Oscar Wilde in Leadville | access-date=February 23, 2015 | url-status=live | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150224062252/http://www.oscarwildeinamerica.org/lectures-1882/april/0413-leadville.html | archive-date=February 24, 2015 }}</ref>

Several other notable figures visited the Tabor Opera House, including boxer [[Jack Dempsey]].<ref name="Buys 2007"/>

===Post-mining era===
[[Image:Leadville & the Hotel Vendome , Colorado , 1950s , Kodachrome by Chalmers Butterfield.jpg|thumb|Leadville in the 1950s]]

The town has made major efforts to improve its economy by encouraging tourism and emphasizing its history and opportunities for outdoor recreation. The [[National Mining Hall of Fame|National Mining Museum and Hall of Fame]] opened in 1987 with a federal charter that was drawn in by Leadville offering a good deal on the former high school building.

In 1983, [[Ken Chlouber]] partnered with Merilee Maupin to founded the [[Leadville Trail 100]] Run, a 100-mile [[ultramarathon]] through the rugged mountain terrain  around the town. It succeeded, leading them to found the still-extant Leadville Race Series, which contains a variety of races.<ref>{{cite web |title=History |url=https://www.leadvilleraceseries.com/history/ |website=Leadville Race Series |publisher=Life Time Fitness |access-date=May 30, 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240530200057if_/https://www.leadvilleraceseries.com/history/ |archive-date=May 30, 2024 |date=June 5, 2023<!-- Date from page source --> |url-status=live}}</ref> The Leadville Race Series has become a popular endurance race series, attracting hundreds of athletes to Leadville each year.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Rom |first1=Zoë |title=How the Leadville 100 Saved a Struggling Mining Town |url=https://www.rei.com/blog/run/how-the-leadville-100-saved-a-struggling-mining-town |website=[[REI Co-op]] |access-date=May 30, 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240530203548if_/https://www.rei.com/blog/run/how-the-leadville-100-saved-a-struggling-mining-town |archive-date=May 30, 2024 |date=August 18, 2017 |url-status=live}}</ref> Leadville  is often used as a base for [[altitude training]] and hosts a number of other events for [[Running|runners]] and [[Mountain bike|mountain bicyclists]].<ref>{{Cite web |last=Post |first=Steve Lipsher {{!}} The Denver |date=August 25, 2016 |title=How the Leadville 100 saved a town and created a community |url=https://www.denverpost.com/2016/08/25/how-the-leadville-100-saved-a-town-and-created-a-community/ |access-date=July 31, 2023 |website=The Denver Post |language=en-US}}</ref>