Tabor Grand Hotel

Photographed by Cosmos Mariner, July 27, 2025

1. Tabor Grand Hotel Marker

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Valley,

Divide.

West.

America,

Mountains,

Hemisphere,

World,

Anglosphere.

Photographed by Cosmos Mariner, July 27, 2025

2. Tabor Grand Hotel Marker

The marker is mounted at eye level on the south side of the building, near the southeast corner. Harrison Avenue is in the right background.

From the National Register Nomination prepared by Joseph Scott Mendinghall, 12/18/1975:
The Tabor Grand Hotel is a four-story brick Victorian building with false mansard roof. The hotel was built by H.A.W. Tabor and completed in 1886. Though the first floor now has a store front facade, it does not greatly detract from the architectural flavor of the building. There have been other minor alterations, but the hotel retains most of its original architectural characteristics.
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The first Leadville boom took place in the early 1860's with the discovery of rich placer gold diggings, but the surface deposits

Photographed by Cosmos Mariner, July 27, 2025

3. Tabor Grand Hotel (southeast elevation)

were quickly exhausted. The second boom in the 1870's ushered in the silver era. One of the most spectacular strikes in Colorado mining annals, it began with a series of incredibly rich discoveries along California Gulch. Almost overnight the desolate pine flat just below timberline sprouted into a rowdy, rugged mining camp with the usual assortment of pine bough shelters, tent hotels, banks, grocery stores, beer gardens, and mine dumps. The extravagance and gaudy taste of the richest miners equaled or surpassed that of their counterparts in other mining camps.
In 1880, Leadville's population was estimated at from 25,000 to 40,000 and it was proud of its reputation as a wide-open mining town, with 100 licensed saloons and a dozen gambling houses operating around the clock. It has been estimated that the district produced some $136,000,000 in silver between 1879 and 1888.
Below the silver-bearing strata, quartz veins heavily seamed with gold were discovered, and in spite of the panic of 1893, which ended the silver boom, Leadville prospered again as a gold camp until the end of the century. Since that time, lead, zinc, manganese, and molybdenum have been mined in the district.
Leadville, today, is one of the largest of the old mining towns. The north side of the town has been developed with modern commercial and residential buildings. Along the Harrison Avenue corridor

Photographed by Cosmos Mariner, July 27, 2025

4. Tabor Grand Hotel (east elevation)

there remain a number of historic structures. The Leadville Historic District encompasses a scattered group of distinctive and important historic buildings of the central architectural theme associated with late 19th-century mining towns of the West.

(by Thomas J. Noel) Excerpt:  Repeated stripping of the building by short-term owners ended with the 1989 collapse of the northwest corner, exposing the naked interiors of rooms. A $3.1 million restoration in 1992 rehabilitated not only the fallen corner but the entire four-story red brick edifice for first-floor retail space and thirty-eight upper-story units of low-income housing. An octagonal corner tower above the mansarded fourth floor is the outstanding feature of this exquisite Second Empire landmark. Details include wooden pilasters mimicking cast iron storefronts, prominent fourth-floor dormers, and a bracketed metal cornice. The southwest corner room has an eccentric observatory jutting out over the sidewalk.

Excerpt:  Built during the two year period of

Photographed by Cosmos Mariner, July 27, 2025

5. Tabor Grand Hotel

1883 to 1885, this four story brick building was designed by noted architect of the period, George King. The newspaper of the day carried the following quote when the Hotel opened: “Leadville now has a hotel which in elegance of its appointments is second to none in the west and in which citizens and tourists will find all the luxuries and conveniences of the older cities.”

Excerpt:  The Leadville Historic District is in the mining town of Leadville, Colorado. The National Historic Landmark District includes 67 mines in the mining district east of the city up to the 12,000-foot level, and a defined portion of the village area. It was designated in 1961. Then, when the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) program was started in 1966, Leadville's National Historic District was included in its first day's listings. The NRHP district was later expanded, adding a number of structures along the Harrison Avenue corridor.
Tabor Grand Hotel:
This four story brick building was designed by architect George King, and built by Horace Tabor. The hotel has had many names including the Maxwell, the Kitchen, and the

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Vendome.

Excerpt:  The Leadville mining district ranks as one of the country’s richest mineral regions. The first gold mining boom occurred in 1860, bringing approximately 10,000 miners to the area. The second boom began in 1878 with the discovery of extensive silver deposits. The fortunes of Leadville’s best known silver king, H.A.W. Tabor, crashed along with silver prices in 1893.