Leadville FAM 

WHAT:  Leadville FAM Tour


WHERE:  Wooly Mammoth Park n Ride, I-70 Exit 259


WHEN:  May 30, 2017


ORGANIZER:  Michael Pearl, Ph.D., C.I.T.M. 


SEMINAR LEADER:  Lily Ewing, lwhichcraft@aol.com, 303-250-9679 (voice & text)


Agenda


7:00 Depart Wooly Mammoth Parking Lot (via 15 passenger vehicle) 
 
8:00 Comfort Break – Georgetown Visitor Center 
 
9:30 Arrive Leadville Visitor Center Welcome and overview 
 
10:00 City driving tour 
 
11:00 Tabor Opera House Tour 
 
11:45 Hotel Delaware Tour 
 
12:30 Lunch (Complimentary or “on-your-own”) and exploring 
 
1:30 National Mining Hall of Fame and Museum 
 
2:00 Healy House Museum and Dexter Cabin 
 
2:30 Closing Comments 
 
3:00 Depart Leadville 
 
4:30 Comfort Break – Georgetown Visitor Center 
 
5:30 Arrive Wooly Mammoth Parking Lot 


FAM – May 30, 2017

Leadville


​RMGA did a one-day FAM to Leadville.  RMGA used a rental (15 passenger) van.  Meeting point was Woolly Mammoth parking lot at I-70 and Morrison Road.  The cost was $40/person – including lunch.  The weather was great, departure was at 7:00 a.m. We were in Georgetown for a comfort break before 8 a.m. and arrived in Leadville at 9:00 a.m. – earlier than expected. 

We met our Leadville contact, Donna, at Healy House, located at 912 Harrison Avenue.  Donna gave each of us a packet of information about Leadville and the surrounding area.  Leadville is the highest elevation city in North America and is home to the highest golf course, highest airport, synthetic turf field and skate park. 














Healy House has daily tours from May 26 to September 4th – from 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. (Last tour starts at 3:45 p.m. Photos of the group and then a tour of Healy House and Dexter Cabin.  Bud Elliott, the former Mayor of Leadville and a former tour guide was our contact at the Healy House.  The group was split into two groups for this tour – rooms are smaller and 12 people would be a lot in each room.  Count on 6-7 for a tour.  Parking is available in front of the house.  Our guides were Benita and Kris Viegele.  

There are eight museums in Leadville (open from Memorial Day to October).

  • Heritage Museum
  • Healy House Museum and Dexter Cabin
  • House with the Eye Museum
  • Matchless Mine
  • National Mining Hall of Fame and Museum
  • Tabor Home
  • Tabor Opera House
  • Temple Israel Synagogue and Museum


Originally Healy House had only two floors – August Meyer came over to Leadville from Alma with his wife Emma.  The house had a telephone as early as 1879 – a photo of the house when it had only two floors has a telephone pole in front of the house.  In 1880 there were 30,000 residents, including David May (May D&F), Charles Boettcher and Horace Tabor.

Burros were used in the mines and for camping trips.  Burros can carry only 35 pounds of cargo. 

August built a smelter in 1891 – miners needed to separate lead ore from silver ore.  (At one time there were 17 smelters in Leadville).  The house is high on the hill to try to avoid the dirty air and smell from the smelters.  August brought in the first Post Office and the railroad.  He also named the city Leadville.  A very influential citizen. 

The house was sold to the Methodist Church to use as a manse – which it remained for just a few years.  Then it was resold to Patrick and Emma Healy Kelly who made it a boarding house.  Emma died in childbirth with her 4th child.  The owners added the 3rd floor and the 1930 census noted that 22 people lived in the house.  He sold to Dan and Nelly Healy.  Dan was a state representative, the postmaster and also sold real estate and insurance.  After his death, Nelly ran it all and also was a teacher. 

Inside the house are portraits of Johnny Campion (owned the Little Jonny Mine) and he incorporated his mines into the IBEX Mines.  James Joseph Brown (Unsinkable Molly Brown’s husband) was a mining engineer for Mr. Campion. 

The current wallpaper is new and replicates the original wallpaper.  Most rooms have wallpaper on the ceiling as well. 

The furniture in the master bedroom belonged to H.A.W. and Baby Doe Tabor.  There are “Murphy” beds in a couple of the rooms.  The boarders could fold up the bed so that they would have room to move around during the day. 

The piano in the parlor dates from 1838.  The china on the dining table belonged to Nelly Healy.  We saw the “smoking room” and a smoking hat – the men put on jackets and hats to smoke their cigars and pipes because when the smoke got too thick they opened a window to let it out – hence the need for a jacket and hat.  Women wore as many as 6 petticoats and often their clothing would weigh as much as 40#!!!!

There are a couple of zinc bathtubs in the house – zinc was another ore that was mined in Leadville. 

There are photos of the 1895 Ice Palace constructed in Leadville – unfortunately it was a mild winter so it only lasted until March. 

We then toured the Dexter Cabin – which has Lyncrusta wall coverings and papered ceilings.  We saw the original striped floors made of black walnut and white oak.  The cabin contains a great example of tramp art and also a collection of shaving mugs.


















We then were off to City Hall which has a layout similar to Federal building in cities of about the same population (12-15,000).  Mayor Greg Labbe greeted us in costume and showed us around.  Offices for highways, draft board and various federal offices were housed here.  It smelled like paper, ink, and workmen. 

He told us that there are 10 summer events planned for the Tabor Opera House. 

H.A.W. Tabor had a general store and also had the first Post Office in his store.  Mail was hand delivered twice a day.  Leadville is a First Class PO city – it has carriers and also RFD routes.  The Postmaster had to qualify for revolver training each year.  The postal inspectors who came to check on the carriers spied on them through louvered vents.  Father Dyer delivered the mail over the mountains and held church services for these stranded people.

H.A.W. Tabor invested in mines and made $374,000 in the first three months of operation at the Little Pittsburgh Mine which was the first silver mine.  He panned $7,000 worth in the first summer he was in Leadville. 

H.A.W. was married to Augusta when they moved out here.  Horace’s career also included being Lt. Gov. of Colorado, and for a short time he was a U.S. Senator.  He divorced Augusta once he met Baby Doe.  Horace and Baby Doe were married in Washington, D.C. while Horace was a Senator.  Augusta got the house in Denver and $300,000 in silver certificates which she cashed in and made investments.  One of her very successful investments was in Singer Sewing Machines.  Augusta died a very wealthy woman.  Horace did not convert his stocks to gold and other investments and lost most of his money in 1893 with the repeal of the Sherman Silver Act. 

Greg introduced Judge Neil Reynolds who gave us an overview of the court system and the court room in the old days. 

We walked down the street for lunch at the Silver Dollar Café – all part of the fee for the day though each person was expected to leave at least a $2 tip (20% of $10). 

After lunch our guide was Bob Hartzell, ski instructor.  Bob moved to Leadville because it was within a 50 mile radius of placed he wanted to work as a ski instructor.  Aspen is about 35 miles away as the crow flies but a couple of hours on the roads.  But he stayed in Leadville. 

Bob told us about Doc Holladay (Gunfight at the OK Corral in Tombstone, Arizona).  Doc had to leave his guns at home when he went to the bar (Race Series Pub) to play cards though he had a friend who watched his back. 

We drove past the House with the Eye at 127 which is now a museum.  The house was built by a contractor who used different style of trim in each room so that he could show clients what their house would look like when he built it.

We next visited the Leadville RR depot (1896).  This was the only train to Denver and in bad weather could take as long as 2-1/2 days to get there.  The current tourist railroad uses flatcars that were converted to boxcars and can accommodate 296 passengers.  The railroad offers fall color tours which sell out very quickly.  The tour takes 2-1/2 hours and runs on weekends.  They also offer special tours (i.e.,) BBQ tours, wildflower tours during late July and August.  You can carry your own lunch if you like.  Prices vary and there are discounts available for groups larger than 20.  The rail tours will close October 8, 2017 this season. 

We drove up to the Matchless Mine, not enough time for a complete tour (1 hour) but we did look into Baby Doe’s cabin and talk with the tour guides.  We went under the Mineral Belt Trail, a paved bike and hiking trail that is groomed during the winter.  At the Matchless Mine we met Steve Whittington, executive director of the mining museum.  The museum owns the Matchless Mine.  They offer only surface tours – the shaft is 600’ deep and dangerous.  There are only 3 buildings left standing now.  The Matchless Mine had great production from 1880 – 1884 and was very profitable.  Horace spent money and built hotels, opera houses in both Denver and Leadville.  He died in 1899 and Baby Doe lived in the cabin until her death in 1935 from a heart attack. 

The Hopemore mine is still open for tours on weekends.  It has two shafts 600’ deep.  There are currently 18 mines in Colorado that give tours.  The Amax Mines still produce molybdenum though there are only 480 employees now.  In the 1980s there were 3,200 employees. 

Our next stop was the Tabor Opera House, now owned by the city of Leadville.  They received a $600,000 grant to buy it and are able to use most of it.  The Opera House needs lots of tender loving refurbishing.  The opera house was built in 1879 in 100 days.  It had gas lights and its own gas plant.  We wandered through several of the safe rooms.  The trains came in 1880.  Jake Sandowski opened his men’s clothing store on the main floor.  There was a pharmacy on the first floor as well.  The tile floor is original – the tile layer came with the tile and used no grout between the tiles.  The chalkboard in one of the upper rooms dates from the 1930s when it was used daily to show the average price of the minerals (Dow Jones Average).  Originally the Opera House seated 880, now 650 seats.  We went backstage and downstairs to the dressing rooms.  On the upper level there were 25 sleeping rooms for the stagehands – these rooms were only available from above the stage – the stagehands were not expected to fraternize with the paying guests.  The Opera House sold out both shows every day, except for opening night – there was a double hanging across the street that evening.  Oscar Wilde lectured here twice, Judy Collins played here and Jack Dempsey fought in a small ring on the stage.  Houdini performed here and there is a trap door in the center of the stage built to his specifications for his “escapes”.  There are several canvases from the Denver Tabor Opera House décor here. 















From 1901-1955 the Opera House was owned by the Elks Club and had several bars.  Sometime in the 1950s, Mrs. Furman bought it for $20,000 but the banks would not finance it.  She borrowed $10,000 from her mother-in-law and was required to have a Maytag showroom in the building. 

Our last stop was at the Delaware Hotel where Kit Williams, owner told us the story of the hotel: 

Kit and his wife bought the hotel 17 years ago at auction.  His wife was a historian and his background was in property management. 

He started with the Callaway brothers who came to Leadville in the early 1860s after losing everything in the Civil War and started a wholesale retail business.  This business burned three times and they lost everything again.  The hotel was built in 1886 at a cost of $85,000 and took only six months to build.  The architect was George King.  Mr. King had a home on 9th Street and his home is still standing. 

The hotel had 50 rooms and 6 baths.  Now there are 40 rooms with bathrooms en suite.  The hotel has a central vacuum system in the basement and has ADA approved bathrooms.  There are as many as 23 spirits that have appeared in the building. Kit has had “meetings” with these spirits.  President Grant stayed at the hotel. 

The Tabor Vendome was across the street and at one time there was a tunnel between the two.  During Prohibition, one hotel would have a bingo game and the other a Roaring ’20s party.  When the police showed up, the participants would run through the tunnel and be casually playing bingo at the other hotel.  There was also a tunnel that went two blocks down the street to the bank.  The tower on the bank was used as a watchtower for security and armed guards would look down on the street to prevent robberies. 

Other trivia tidbits about Leadville:

  • There are 30,000 people in the cemetery and it has been platted so you can identify graves
  • There were cribs all over town, including behind many important homes where some of the girls could make as much as $25/day at $.25/man – servicing as many as 200 men a day.
  • Leadville has one of the largest Victorian districts in the U.S.
  • At that time (1880s) Leadville had cable cars, seven trains and was considered one of the most modern and progressive cities in the U.S.
  • Other important citizens of Leadville include the Guggenheims, Marshall Fields, W.B. Daniels (D&F), James V. Dexter (Dexter Cabin) who owned many mines and had a cabin built at each mine similar to the one in Leadville. 


From Leadville you can see Mosquito Pass and Mount Elbert and Mount Massive in the Sawatch Range. 

Leadville has a new zipline tour very close by – 6 platforms.  You can book this at the rail depot.  We drove past on the way up and down the hill. 

 

Contact Information:

Donna Childress
703-862-0313 (m)
donna@childresscommunications.com

Healy House:
http://www.historycolorado.org/museums/healy-house-museum-dexter-cabin
(719) 486-0487
Bud Elliott - bud.elliott@msn.com
Guides: Kris Veigele and Benita

Silver Dollar Saloon
www.silverdollarsaloonco.com
(719) 486-9914

National Mining Hall of Fame and Museum
www.mininghalloffame.org
(719) 486-1229
Director Steve Whittington, director@mininghalloffame.org
Matchless Mine Guide, Brenda Miller

Leadville, Colorado & Southern Railroad
http://www.leadville-train.com/
866-386-3936

Bob Hartzell - Van guide
hartzlead@gmail.com

Tabor Opera House
www.taboroperahouse.net
Tammy Taber, Tour Manager, Tabor Opera House Preservation Foundation
mrstaboroperahouse@hotmail.com
719-486-8409

The Historic Delaware Hotel
www.delawarehotel.com
800-748-2004
Kit Williams, proprietor
KitCWms@aol.com
970-476-0909 (office)
970-376-0909 (cell)

 

Written by Nancy Brueggeman