Violence and prosperity co-existed in 1879 in Leadville. The local newspaper observed at the time: "Leadville never sleeps. The theaters close at three in the morning. The dance houses and liquoring shops are never shut. The highwayman patrols the street in quest of drunken prey. The policeman treads his beat to and fro. The music at the beer halls in grinding low. A mail coach has just arrived. There is a merry party opposite the public school. A sick man is groaning in the agonies of death. Carbonate Hill with her scores of briefly blazing fires is Argus-eyed. Three shots are heard down below the old courthouse. There is a fight in a State Street casino. A woman screams. The sky is cloudless. Amman stands dreaming in front of the Windsor looking at the stars - he is away from home."

The journal continued, "A barouche holding two men and two women comes rushing up Chestnut Street. Another shot is heard down near the city jail. A big forest fire lights up the mountains at the head of Iowa Gulch. 'Give you the price of a bed, did you say?' 'Yes, I've not seen a bed for a week. Believe me, kind sir, I'm sick and in need of a friend. Help me, stranger, and as true as I live I'll repay your kindness.' The clock on the Grand Hotel points to one. Shots are heard from Carbonate Hill. The roar of revelry is on the increase. The streets are full of drunken carousers taking in the town."

By 1881, there were 14 smelters and reduction plants operating in the Leadville district. Some of the biggest mines were the Tabor Matchless Mine, Morning Star, Iron Silver, Catalpa, Chrysolite, and Little Pittsburgh (Tabor also had a interests in several of these mines.) Silver production reached a peak of over $11,000,000 in 1880 and then leveled out at about $10,000,000 for a number of years before it began to decline. During this period, many great fortunes were made and lost in the mining district. Horace Tabor became one of the richest men in the world, but would eventually die a pauper.

In 1884, Doc Holliday quarreled with two members of the Leadville constable, grazing one of them on the arm with his bullet and killing the other officer, named Kelly, who thereby earned the distinction of being the last name on Holliday's lengthy list of unsuccessful opponents. In the spring of 1887, Holliday bought himself a one-way ticket to Glenwood Springs, the spa that claimed so many cures, and died there before the year was out.

By 1893, the estimated population reached almost 60,000. At it's very height, Leadville was doomed to become a ghost town once again, when in 1893, the United States moved to the gold standard, which created a great depression in the area and resulted in the closing of most of the silver mines. All of the smelters closed, with the exception of one, which became the great Arkansas Valley Smelter, the largest in Colorado, which continued to operate until the 1960's. By 1896, the area mines had produced more than 200 million dollars in ore.