Article Contributed on: 7/1/2009 12:46:48 AM
150 years ago on July 1, 1859, the newborn town of Golden City was paid a visit by guests recently arrived from the east, three men among the many who had come in search of gold. With them was a young woman, who weighed only 90 pounds because she was somewhat sickly, with her infant child. As she later described it, ""What I endured on this journey only the women who crossed the plains in 1859 can realize. There was no station until we arrived within eighty miles of Denver, via the Republican route; no road and a good part of the way no fuel. We were obliged to gather buffalo chips, sometimes traveling miles to find enough to cook a meal with. This weary work fell to the women, for the men had enough to do in taking care of the teams, and in 'making' and 'breaking' the camp." Her baby was teething and suffering from fever and needed constant attention through the journey. After resting for a few days in Denver, she arrived at Golden City, who became known to folks around here as
Augusta Tabor.
Her husband
Horace Austin Warner Tabor had heard of the promise of the gold finds out here, and instead of seeking greater comfort back east, Augusta chose to join him on their journey to a new place. On July 1st they arrived at Golden, scarcely two weeks old, she doubtless among the few women then around here, and their son
Maxcy the earliest known young child to visit the city. Of her time here, this is what Augusta wrote:
"We arrived in Denver about the middle of June, and as our cattle were footsore we were obliged to camp there until the first day of July. Then we went up Clear Creek where the town of Golden was being established. A miner came down from the mountains, from whom we inquired the way to Gregory diggings. With the information derived from him, Mr. Tabor concluded to go on a prospecting tour.
So, on the morning of the Fourth of July, the men took a supply of provisions on their backs, with a few blankets, and, leaving one of the party to keep me company, pushed forward into the mountains, hopeful of success. They were absent three weeks, and to me they were three very lonely, wearisome weeks, although wagons were camped around and Golden City was a half-mile away. A vast wilderness, whose silence was broken only by the lowing of cattle, stretched out on every side. Even to a pioneer woman, on whom the necessity of such experience was laid, the situation was one of indescribable isolation.
On the 26th of July we again loaded the wagon and started into the mountains. The road was a mere trail; every few rods we were obliged to stop and widen it. Many times we unloaded the wagon, and, by pushing it, helped the cattle up the hills. Going down hill was so much easier, that it was often necessary to fasten a full-grown pine tree to the back of the wagon for a hold-back or brake. Often night overtook us where it was impossible to find a level place to spread a blanket. Under such circumstances we drove stakes in the ground, rolled a log against them, and lay with our feet against the log. Sometimes the hill was so steep that we slept almost upright.
We were nearly three weeks cutting our way through Russell's Guldch in to Payne's Bar, now called Idaho Springs. Ours was the first wagon through, and I was the first white woman there, if white I could be called, after camping out three months."
Where Augusta camped those weeks likely was in the area of today's far north Golden, possibly the vicinity of Canyon Point, Mountain Ridge, or even the canyon entrance. Horace would return there in 1890, by then a bonanza silver king of Colorado, impressed with Golden's industry to the point of ordering the bricks for his new Tabor Grand Opera House in Denver from the company building a new brick plant there which the Brickyard House belonged to. Augusta became quite successful as well operating lucrative businesses "mining the miners" in various ways from baking to taking in boarders, and gaining in health. The two would infamously divorce when he left her for
Baby Doe, though the tough woman who stayed in the wilderness here came out on top, for while her husband died much poorer she died a wealthy woman in Pasadena. Little Maxcy, named after a boarder they once took in, grew up to run a hotel, the Brown Palace. What is reputedly the desk her husband worked at as postmaster late in life is slated to go to the Brickyard House today, at the plant which company he glowingly patronized.