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Baby Doe Tabor

Judy Nolte Temple

Colorado Women Biography

The story of Baby Doe Tabor has seduced America for more than a century. Long before her body was found frozen in the Leadville shack where for decades she had guarded the Matchless Mine, Elizabeth McCourt "Baby Doe" Tabor was the stuff of legend. The daughter of a shopkeeper, this stunning divorcee married Colorado's wealthiest mining magnate and became "the Silver Queen of the West." Blessed with two daughters and with the Matchless Mine's earnings of $2,000 a day, Horace and Baby Doe mesmerized the world with their wealth and extravagance. But Baby Doe's life was also a morality play. Almost overnight, the Tabors' wealth disappeared when depression struck in 1893. Horace died six years later. According to the legend, one daughter left home never to return; the other died horribly. For thirty-five years, Baby Doe, who was considered mad, lived in solitude high in the Colorado Rockies. Baby Doe left a record of her madness in a set of writings she called her "Dreams and Visions." These were discovered after her death but never studied in detail until now. - Jacket flap.