Editing Leadville, Colorado (section)

===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"/>