Watertown republican. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1860-1906, 1899-04-12
DEATH OF MIR. TABOR.
Man Who Made Fortune in Colo
RADIO Mines and Later
Lost 1t.

Denver. Col, April 10.-A. w. Tabor,
postmaster Of this city and cx-United
States senator, died at $50 a. NJ today
Of appendicitis, after three days illness.
A brief history of Tabor's career in
Colorado and of how he accumulated his
millions, will be Of interest. When q
young man of % he was fighting grass
hoppers and starvation on small claim
in eastern Kansas Becoming disguised
with that kind of a life and learning
from returning trappers of the rich gold
discoveries made along Cherry creek i'll
1853. he packed his wife and few be-
lOngings into a prairie schooner, and in
1861 started for the new Eldorado. For
many years, with Indifferent success, he
followed the tickle goddess through the
exciting days of Golden, Central City,
Black Hawk, Breckenridge and Buck
skin Joe.
Tabor found fortune III Leadville in 1870,
when the world was electrified with the
announcement that deposit of sand car
Donates had been discovered which, for
richness. had never been eQualed, even
on the famous ComstOck OF Nevada. Ia
Dor had been a store and a boarding
house keeper in California gulch and
had accumulated q few thousand dollars.
He had shrewd suspicion that the
placer gold in the California gulch had
not dropped from the skies, but had
dropped from the hills by erosion. To
verify his suspicious he deposited much
of the money he had made. which was
little enough. TO grubstaking prOspectors
who might be so foolishly visionary as to
think they might be able to lay bare the
mother lode.
Two of these prospectors, one a Dutch
shoemaker, and the other an illiterate
IriShman. thought they could get better
results by going farther back into the
hills than the others had gone. They hit
upon Fryer hill, about a mile east of
the site of the Leadville of today, as
promising ground, and went to work.
They sunk hole after hole, and at one
spot determined to drive Il long shaft,
believing they would ultimately cut the
vein they imagined existed there. The
work was comparatively easy, for they
passed through yards and yards Of vel
low sand which had the appearance Of
decOmpOsed and disintegrated lime rock.
This was hOisted to the surface and
thrown on the dump which soon assumed
prOdlgiOuS proportions.
But no gold ore was encountered, and
finally the day came when the indus
triOus prospectors decided that they
would give UP the claim they had worked
so aSsiduOusly. Then happy thought
came to the lrishman. He was standing
on the dump at the time. in the act of
bidding it Il sOrrowful farewell. when he
exclaimed, See here. we have been haul
ing up tons and tons of this stuff, lets
find out what it is He sacked guam
tlty Of it, and carried it to an assayer,
who, when he had made his analysis.
was pronounced crazy. He found those
grains Of sand to be almost pure silver,
running thousands of dollars to the ton
1t was something entirely new in metal
lursy. and he was afraid to make known
the result for fear of the deriSiOn it
would excite
The truth finally came out and Tabor
aWOke to find himself n One-third owner
of the famous Little PittSburg
Then and there Leadville sprung into
existence. and in few weeks the Little
Pittsburg was sold. Tabor receiving a
round million for his share
From that day Tabor's luck became
proverbial. Everything he touched
turned into silver beans. and silver was
not then the deSpiSed commodity it is
now considered His millions doubled
and tripled like magic and he became the
most talked-of man in the West. Politi-
cal Office was thrust upon him. He was
elected NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS. and subse-
'quently, to crafty an ambition, he be-
came senator of the United States. He
was only partially successful. for Tom
Bamen, the noted poker player of the
Senate, was elected to Il full term, while
Tabor who spent money like water. was
forced to satisfy himself with a thirty
day term, created by the death Of one Of
the Colorado senators.
Then began the downfall of Tabor, ard
to those who see retributiye justice in
everything disastrous, the Colorado
mans experience was much the same as
Napoleon's.
In his days of pioneering and hardship
he had been faithfully followed and
served by a devoted wife who, though not
young and pretty, had been a profitable
helpmate. With his sudden accession to
wealth, Tabor contracted all the habits
of the Western pioneer; that is to say
he spent his money freely and not little
of it went for women and wine. One
him and he determined to get a new
mate
To do this he must be divorced and he
succeeded in loosing the knot which
bound him to the faithful, but plain Au-
gusta Tabor. Then he married beauti-
full young woman whose character suf-
,fered, deservedly or undeservedly, for the
part she played in the transaction and
her apparent haste to marry the richest
man in COloradO-a state of mine million
aires.
Before this had occurred Tabor had
spent large sums of money in erecting
handsome buildings in Denver. including
the noted theater They are there now,
monuments to a dissipated fortune. To
his taste and cash much of the present
beauty of Denver is due
Mr. Tabor's wife was a Miss McCourt
of Oshkosh. daughter of Peter McCourt,
who died at Denver few years since.
Mr.. Tabor was divorced from his first
wife.