Augusta Pierce Tabor (1833-1895) - Augusta Pierce was one of seven daughters and three sons born to William B. Pierce and Lucy Eaton. She grew up in a comfortable middle-class home in Augusta, Maine. She began a courtship with Horace Tabor that would eventually lead to marriage in 1857. The pair headed west where they homesteaded a piece of land on Deep Creek in Riley County, Kansas which is called "Tabor Valley" to this day. Though Augusta was appalled by the rattlesnakes and Indians, the pair stayed for two years until Horace began to hear stories of gold discoveries in the western part of the Kansas Territory (now Colorado.) 

Their arrival in the gold camp at California Gulch made a curiosity of Augusta, the first woman known to venture into those parts. She endeared herself to the miners by becoming the camp's cook, laundress, postmistress, and banker, using the gold scales she and Horace had brought with them to weigh the "dust."

Many people who disliked  Baby Doe predicted that she would divorce Tabor if he ever lost his fortune. However, Baby Doe was loyal and devoted to her husband until the end. In April, 1899 Horace died. Baby Doe, just 38 years old, would never again live a lavish lifestyle. She ended up returning to Leadville, taking up residence in the one-room, 12 by 16-foot structure that originally served as a tool shed at the Matchless Mine, that had originally made the Tabor fortune. She died there, penniless, and was found on March 7, 1935. She was 81 years-old. More ...

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