Leadville
In Leadville she caught the attention of Horace Tabor, mining millionaire, and owner of Leadville's Matchless Mine. Like Baby Doe, Tabor was married, but in 1880 he left his wife Augusta to be with Baby Doe; he established her in plush suites at hotels in Leadville and Denver.
Horace and Augusta Tabor had lived for 25 years on the frontier: moving to Kansas where they tried their hand at agriculture, then following the gold rush to Colorado, but never striking it rich. Eventually they found their way to Leadville where Horace, in 1878, grub staked two prospectors with about $60 worth of goods in return for one-third of their profits. To everyone's surprise the two men's stake was successful, beginning Tabor's path to wealth. With his profits, he bought out the two, then bought stakes in more mines, and had a house built in Denver. He ran, successfully, for Lieutenant Governor of Colorado, in 1878, (when still a territory), and established the Little Pittsburg Consolidated Mining Company, which quickly gained a worth of about $20 million. He bought the Matchless Mine, which for many years produced large amounts of silver; his profits were so great that he was quickly on his way to becoming one of the richest men in the country.
At an altitude of 10,000 feet, Leadville was the second largest city in Colorado. It boasted over 100 saloons and gambling places, multiple daily and weekly newspapers, and 36 brothels. Tabor's presence seemed to be everywhere. He opened the Tabor Opera House, bought luxury items for his wife, Augusta, and established a private army that he used for protection at his holdings and as a force against striking miners. He spent his money lavishly, mostly on his own entertainment—drinking, gambling and frequenting brothels. In 1880, Augusta moved away from him, to live in Denver, while Tabor enjoyed himself in Leadville. A Denver newspaper columnist described him as, "Stoop-shouldered; ambling gait ...black hair, inclined to baldness ....dresses in black; magnificent cuff buttons of diamonds and onyx ...worth 8 million dollars." Historian Judy Nolte Temple writes that it "seemed inevitable that the prettiest woman in the mining West would eventually meet the richest man."
Baby Doe met Horace Tabor in a restaurant in Leadville one evening in 1880. She told him her story, and that she had arrived in Leadville because of Jake Sandelowsky's generosity; Tabor gave her $5000 on the spot. Baby Doe then had a message, and $1000, delivered to Sandelowsky in which she declared that she would not marry him. Instead, Tabor moved her to the Clarendon Hotel, next to the opera house and Sandelowsky's store, Sands, Pelton & Company. Sandelowsky later moved to Aspen, where he opened another store, married, and built a turreted house.
Some months later, Tabor moved Baby Doe to the Windsor Hotel in Denver. A newly constructed turreted building, meant to look like Windsor castle, the hotel had extremely lavish decorations such as mirrors made of diamond dust. Tabor had a gold-leafed bath-tub in his suite. Guests were wealthy, well-known and well-connected.
Baby Doe claimed to love Tabor, and he loved her. He moved permanently out of his Denver home and asked his wife Augusta for a divorce. She refused him, he in turn refused to send her an invitation to attend the grand opening of Denver's Tabor Grand Opera House. He stopped giving his wife money; she sued him but failed; he again demanded a divorce. Baby Doe suggested that he seek a divorce in a different jurisdiction, and in 1882 a Durango, Colorado, judge granted them a divorce. However, the filing was irregular and once Tabor realized that he had the county clerk paste together two pages in the records, to hide the action. Despite his existing marriage to Augusta, Horace Tabor and Elizabeth McCourt Doe married secretly in St. Louis, Missouri, in September 1882. At that time both were bigamists: his divorce was questionable and hers not yet recorded.
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