Leadville, Colorado

How Leadville is governed

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0 of 14 positions listed. Gray dashed boxes are placeholders waiting for a name.

• Mayor

  Executive

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  The city's chief elected official. Presides over the executive branch, proposes the budget and represents the city.

  • City Manager / Administrator

    Executive

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    The professional administrator who runs day-to-day operations (in some cities appointed by the council instead of the mayor).

    • Police Chief

      Administration & departments

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      Leads the police department.

    • Fire Chief

      Administration & departments

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      Leads the fire and emergency services department.

    • Public Works Director

      Administration & departments

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      Streets, water, sewer, and city buildings.

    • Finance Director

      Administration & departments

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      The budget, taxes, and city accounts.

    • Planning & Zoning Director

      Administration & departments

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      Land use, zoning, building permits.

    • Parks & Recreation Director

      Administration & departments

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      Parks, programs, and public facilities.

• City Council

  Legislative

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  The elected body that passes ordinances, sets the tax rate and approves the budget.

  • City Clerk

    Administration & departments

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    Keeps the official records, runs meeting agendas and, often, local elections.

  • City Attorney

    Administration & departments

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    The city's lawyer; advises officials and prosecutes ordinance violations.

  • Boards & Commissions

    Legislative

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    Citizen advisory bodies, such as planning, zoning appeals and library boards.

• Municipal Court

  Judicial

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  Hears traffic, ordinance and other minor cases.

  • Municipal Judge

    Judicial

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    Presides over the municipal court.

Website

leadville.com

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Population over time

From 2,602 in 2010 to 2,633 in 2020 (+1.2%).

History

Settlement

The Leadville area was first settled in 1859 when placer gold was discovered by A. G. Kelley in California Gulch, and by Abe Lee in April (25/26) 1860, during the Pikes Peak Gold Rush. Prospectors panned for gold in the stream that ran through California Gulch in what became the town of Oro City (oro is the Spanish word for gold). Horace Tabor, who became known as the "Leadville Silver King", and his wife Augusta were among the first prospectors to arrive in Oro City. Horace was appointed as the postmaster of Oro City on November 30, 1868. His wife made money as postmistress, banker, cook, and laundress while Tabor was a prospector.

The early miners had noted that mining for placer gold was hampered by heavy black sand in the sluice boxes, and in 1874 it was discovered that the heavy sand that impeded gold recovery was the lead mineral cerussite, which has a high silver content. Prospectors traced the cerussite to its source, present day Leadville, and by 1876 had discovered several silver-lead lode deposits. By this time, most of the placer gold had been extracted from the gulch; attention shifted to nearby Leadville, and Oro City became a ghost town.

Founding of Leadville

Leadville was founded in 1877 by mine owners Horace Tabor and August Meyer at the start of the Colorado Silver Boom. Tabor's house was also built in 1877, at 116 E. 5th Street. The town was built on desolate flat land below the tree line. The first miners lived in a rough tented camp near the silver deposits in California Gulch. Initially, the settlement was called "Slabtown", but when the residents petitioned for a post office, the name "Leadville" was chosen. By 1880, Tabor and Meyer's new town had gas lighting, water mains, 28 miles (45 km) of streets, 5 churches, 3 hospitals, 6 banks, and a school for 1,100 students. Many business buildings were constructed with bricks hauled in by wagons.

In early 1878, Meyer, along with Leadville's pioneer smelter entrepreneur, Edwin Harrison, after whom the famed Harrison Avenue is named, and Tabor established a post office in Leadville, with George L. Henderson designated as postmaster on July 16, 1877. The post office and the telegraph office both prospered, with Tabor serving as postmaster from February 19 to December 13, 1878. It was said that the Leadville post office was the busiest one between St. Louis and San Francisco. In 1878, the town's first hospital, St. Vincent's, was opened.

The town's first newspaper was The Reveille, a Republican weekly, which was founded in 1878. Three months later, a competing Democratic weekly, The Eclipse, emerged. The Chronicle was the town's first daily and first newspaper in America to employ a full-time female reporter. Like the Rocky Mountain News, The Chronicle took the lead in outing criminals and thieves, in an attempt to clean up the town's shady business culture. Despite violent threats, the Chronicle survived without major incident.

William Nye opened the first saloon in 1877, and it was followed by many others. The same year the Coliseum Novelty was the first theater to open. It offered sleeping rooms upstairs for a nightly rate and provided a variety of entertainments: dancing girls, dogfights, cockfighting, wrestling and boxing matches, and rooms for gambling. In June 1881, it burned to the ground. Ben Wood, who arrived in Leadville in 1878, opened the first legitimate theater, Wood's Opera House, with a thousand seats. It was a first-class theater, where gentlemen removed their hats and did not smoke or drink in the presence of a lady. Less than a year later, Wood opened the Windsor Hotel. His opera house was regarded as the largest and best theater constructed in the West, an honor it held until the opening of the Tabor Opera House. Horace Tabor's Opera House was the costliest structure in Colorado at the time. Building materials were brought by wagons from Denver. The massive three-story opera house, constructed of stone, brick, and iron, opened on November 20, 1879. Tabor, originally from Vermont, became the town's first mayor. After striking it rich, he had an estimated net worth of 10 million dollars and was known for his extravagant lifestyle. In February 1879 the Lake County seat was moved to Leadville, where it has remained ever since. In 1879, An impressive courthouse was built on the west side of Harrison Avenue, joined by a new post office that same year. Telephone service was introduced by Western Union on May 15, 1879, and gas lighting downtown was installed on November 18 that same year. Billings and Eilers Smelter installed a generator and lights for the town on May 13, 1881. On May 19, 1882, a large fire broke out at the corner of Harrison Avenue and East Chestnut.

Horace Tabor divorced his wife of 25 years and married Baby Doe McCourt on September 30, 1882, who was half his age. Tabor was by then a US senator, and the divorce and marriage caused a scandal in Colorado and beyond. For several years, the couple lived a lavish lifestyle in a Denver mansion, but Tabor, one of the wealthiest men in Colorado, lost his fortune when the repeal of the Sherman Silver Purchase Act caused the Panic of 1893. He died on April 10, 1899, of appendicitis, destitute but remained convinced that the price of silver would rebound. According to legend, he told Baby Doe to "hold on the Matchless mine ... it will make millions again when silver comes back." She returned to Leadville with her daughters, Silver Dollar and Lily, where she spent the rest of her life believing Tabor's prediction. At one time the "best dressed woman in the West", she lived in a cabin at the Matchless Mine for the last three decades of her life. On March 7, 1935, after a snowstorm, she was found frozen in her cabin, aged about 81 years.

Mining and smelting

Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.

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