Popular Culture Review Vol. 1, December 1989 | Page 77

cost in thousands o f dollars. It seated some 800patrons and opened
in 1879. Among its performers was no less a personage that Oscar
Wilde. With money came power and influence and Tabor served
as Lieutenant Governor o f the newly created State of Colorado. His
second marriage was attended by President Chester Arthur.
Yet the old story o f “easy come, easy go” held true for Tabor’s
money as it did for the wealth o f many others. The money he spent
now was in excess of income, for silver dropped drastically in price
because of the repeal in 1883 o f the supportive Sherman Silver Act,
and, eventually, Tabor died a pauper in 1899. On his deathbed, he
told Baby Doe that whatever she sold, she should hang on to their
Matchless Mine, for he believed it would yield more riches once
again. She did hang on to it and lived there in a shack during the
hard mountain winters and the hail-driven summers, coming out
only to get groceries and other bare necessities. In purchasing these
necessities, she always told the merchants to charge it to her
account, much as she (lid in her days of wealth. Out of compassion
and remembrance of her spendthrift days, the merchants played the
game as though nothing had changed. Her life followed this pattern
for years until finally at the age of 73 in 1935 she was found frozen
to death at the Matchless shack. So ended the era of Leadville and
the Colorado silver bonanza. All in all, it was luckier than most, for
it had two lives, one in gold and one in silver. Who could ask for
more?
There would be one more great bonanza in Colorado and that
took place around the end of the 19th century. It is a story o f Cripple
Creek— a story o f Robert Womack, a cowboy, a story o f luck,
riches, and labor violence, but it merits separate treatm ent
elsewhere.(18)
The gold era was short-lived, much like that of other western
ventures, and with its passing, we are left only with a sense o f
nostalgia. To the workers, the mines were not simply holes in the

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