Living in this locality for a number of years had been Horace Tabor, a middle-aged storekeeper. He and his wife were New Englanders who had come West in the first wild gold rush of ’59 and after failing to make any money out of mining despite repeated attempts, had dismissed the gold bug from their heads. They had settled down with their one son, Maxcy, now grown, to a steady respectable middle-class life at Oro City, three miles from the site of what was later to be Leadville.
But silver was to change all that. During July, 1877, Tabor recognized the excitement in the air and moved his grocery stock and supplies from Oro City to a fairly large log cabin in Leadville. By January, 1878, about seventy cabins, shanties and tents made up the camp and during the next month the inhabitants held a town election in which the forty-seven-year-old Tabor was chosen mayor. During the next few months the town grew and prospered and so did Tabor’s store profits.
One spring day, two German prospectors, August Rische and George Hook, dropped into the grocery and asked Tabor if he would put up supplies for them to search for a vein of carbonates. Tabor had grubstaked many a miner to no avail but he was naturally generous. He probably expected no better this time, but he made an outlay of some seventeen dollars in return for an agreement that he was to have a third interest in any mine they found. Off they went and located a claim on Fryer Hill which they named the Little Pittsburgh.
They worked along steadily for some time and when their shaft was but twenty-six feet deep, they broke through the layer of hard rock they had been drilling into a body of soft, black, heavy ore. The next day, a fine May morning, Tabor left the grocery store in charge of Augusta, his efficient, managerial wife, and with pick and shovel wielded in vigorous, high anticipation, helped his partners dig and hoist the first wagon load of ore. The smelter bought it immediately for over $200!
By July nearly a hundred tons of ore were being hoisted and shipped each week and the three partners had an income of about fifty thousand dollars a month. Toward fall, Hook sold out to Tabor and Rische for $98,000 and Rische later sold out his interest plus some adjoining claims to Jerome B. Chaffee and David Moffat for over a quarter of a million dollars. Tabor clung to his share and the talk now was how he and his new partners had consolidated all their claims on Fryer Hill and incorporated for twenty million dollars. The fabulous story of silver and Leadville and Tabor—you heard it every night!