Matchless Mine

Learn the history and secrets of Leadville's biggest Silvermine

The Matchless Mine, a symbol of the early mining industry in Colorado, was discovered in 1878 and within 5 years the Matchless Mine had contributed approximately 1.9 million dollars to the wealth of the Leadville Mining District. Purchased by Silver King H.A.W. Tabor in 1879, the profits he made from the mine allowed him to be able to pursue his philanthropic aspirations that would further the development of the new state of Colorado.

The Matchless Mine continued to produce until the crash of the silver market in 1893 and was the beginning of the end of Tabor’s fabulous wealth. His second wife, Elizabeth “Baby Doe” McCourt Tabor, weathered the storm with him and, after the death of H.A.W. in 1899, lived at the Matchless until her death in 1935. The rags to riches to rags again story of the Tabors illustrates the hard work of prospectors and those who followed them, and how the mining industry, upon which these people depended, is subject to the boom and bust economic cycle.