Horace Austin Warner Tabor
Tabor, Horace Austin Warner (1830–1899), a United States prospector who became one of Colorado's “silver barons.” He made a fortune from silver mining, but died in poverty. Tabor was born in Holland, Vermont. From 1860 on, he lived in California Gulch (now Leadville), Colorado.
In 1878 two prospectors in partnership with Tabor discovered a rich vein of silver. Tabor invested his share of the profits in other mining properties and soon became extremely wealthy. He spent his gains freely, giving large sums of money for civic purposes in Leadville and Denver. He was lieutenant governor of Colorado, 1878–84, and for about a month in 1883 filled a vacancy in the U.S. Senate.
Tabor lost his fortune because of unwise investments and the dropping price of silver. After his death, his widow, Elizabeth McCourt Doe (known as “Baby Doe”), lived in eccentric solitude in a shack by the side of Tabor's worn-out Matchless Mine in Leadville. In 1935 she was found frozen to death on the floor of her shack. Douglas Moore's opera The Ballad of Baby Doe (1956) tells the story of Tabor and Baby Doe.