Leadville, Colorado, at 10,430 ft., is the highest incorporated city in the world. Its heavenly altitude did not, however, prevent the town from becoming one of the most notorious, lawless, gambling hellholes in frontier history.
A mining camp was started in 1859 when gold was discovered by prospector Abe Lee in nearby California Gulch; named so because Lee is said to have declared,"By God, I have California in this pan!"
Within a year, 5,000 fortune hunters, almost all men, many from California, came clutching gold pans, sluice-boxes and dreams of yellow riches. It was hard work at high altitude, made more difficult by the heavy black sand that frustrated gold seekers and caused men to curse. The placer (surface) gold deposits were gone in less than ten years and almost everyone disappeared with it. The boom had gone bust.
Then, in 1875, a metallurgist discovered that the much despised heavy black sand was carbonate of lead and had an extremely high silver content. What formerly was considered a nuisance now became one of the greatest silver strikes in the annals of mining.
The silver boom far exceeded the earlier gold strike. What had formerly been a mining camp largely comprised of tents grew to 18,000 inhabitants in less than a year. Tents soon gave way to wood buildings.
The town of Leadville was founded in 1878. It consisted of 120 saloons, 118 gambling dens, and almost no law. One local historian would later write, "Laws were made as needed in the early days of rugged Leadville."
Leadville's proudest structure was the Opera House, built in 1879 by "Silver King" H. A. W. Tabor. On its opening night, the premier was upstaged by a double hanging. Two claim jumpers were taken from the jail by vigilantes and hung from the jailhouse roof. Their bodies were left hanging for sometime to discourage other thieves.
Main street was lined with gambling halls and bordellos. It was called "Tiger Alley", in reference to the Faro expression, "Bucking the Tiger". The "Texas House" operated a dozen Faro tables around the clock. Tom Kemp's Dance and Gambling Hall featured vaudeville entertainment.
The Leadville Mining Club was known for"high stakes only" games.
Every famous and infamous gambler and gunslinger of the American West followed the miners to Leadville. Luke Short, a whisky dealer and gambler showed up in 1879. A gambling dispute caused Short to shoot a man in the face.
He was never charged. After losing $3,000 in a Faro game, notorious gambler 'n gunslinger Ben Thompson concluded he was being cheated (and likely was). The drunken gambler pulled out his six-shooter and put several rounds in the Faro box, shot out the lights and turned over the table as customers ran for the exits.
Poker Alice, among the few women gamblers on the frontier, began her career in Leadville. Alice Ivers was born in England in 1851 and immigrated to America with her parents when she was three. She was educated at a fashionable women's school in the South and brought up a respected lady of society.
At the age of 20, Alice married a Colorado mining engineer. Leadville was the center of action when she and her husband moved there. With little recreation or entertainment for women, Alice occasionally played poker.
When her husband was killed in a mine accident, there were few "acceptable" jobs for women in Leadville. Consequently, she turned to Poker for survival. Poker Alice practiced her trade for 60 years, becoming the most famous women gambler of the American West.
With the gunfight at the O.K. Corral and many other lethal confrontations to his credit, Doc Holliday was already a legend when he arrived in 1883. He got a job dealing Faro at the Monarch Saloon on Harrison Avenue.
Doc had borrowed five dollars from bartender Billy Allen and wasn't quick in paying it back. Wanting his money, Allen, armed with a gun, burst into the Hyman Saloon where Doc was playing poker. Instantly Holliday fired two shots, one bullet hitting Allen in his gun arm, ending the confrontation. When a peace officer came looking for Holliday, Doc shot and killed the lawman. He claimed selfdefense and the charges were dropped. It was Doc's last killing. He left Leadville for Glenwood Springs CO, where he died of TB in 1893. The king of Leadville con men was Jefferson Randolph "Soapy" Smith.
Soap was a much desired product among filthy miners. Smith would sell his bars of soap on the street corner and in the gambling dens. A few bars had $20 bills inside to create interest.
The money bars were always purchased by his partners. Others, hoping to be as lucky, paid a premium price for what was never anything more than a bar of soap. Soapy developed a widespread reputation as he eventually practiced his swindle throughout all the Colorado mining towns. Ultimately, he was killed in a gunfight in Skagway AK in 1898.
By 1893, the "2-mile high city" had more than 60,000 residents. That year, the U.S. Government moved to the gold standard which eventually brought Leadville's silver boom to a bust.
By the turn of the century, Leadville's glory days were gone. The area's mines had produced more than $200 million in ore and it had been home to many of the greatest legends of the West.
