Henry C. Brown, the builder of the Brown Palace Hotel and donor of the State Capitol ground, sold this house to Horace Tabor in 1879. Augusta’s first act, when she obtained it as part of her divorce settlement, was to have the grounds landscaped. Each summer thereafter she entertained at a lawn party to aid charities of the Unity Church.
On November 5 the Tabors returned to Denver and Horace left for Leadville to see to the completion and opening of the Tabor Opera House. Augusta remained in Denver. Tabor did not return even for Christmas. His bachelor suite on the second floor of the Opera House (with its handy passageway across to Bill Bush’s Clarendon Hotel) proved too delightful for a man whose eyes wandered.
Augusta and he began to quarrel more violently. During 1880 they appeared together at balls of the Tabor Hose Co. in Denver and of the Tabor Light Cavalry in Leadville, and when Tabor entertained ex-President and Mrs. Grant in the “Cloud City.” The two couples sat together in the left-hand box for the second act of “Ours,” and then left to attend a ball in the general’s honor. This was July 23, 1880, a momentous date for forty-seven-year old Augusta—not because she had met a president, but because just about that time Horace ceased to be her husband.
In the autumn, back in Denver, Horace gave her $100,000, following his usual practice of making a parting gift. In January, 1881, Tabor left the Broadway mansion irrevocably and established residence in a suite at the Windsor Hotel of which he was part-owner.
What had happened was that, some time during the spring or summer on one of his frequent trips to Leadville, Tabor had met “Baby” Doe. She was twenty-five and he was forty-nine. They were introduced by Bill Bush who had known the Dresden-doll beauty as Mrs. Harvey Doe during her two-and-a-half year residence in Central City. Bill Bush had been proprietor of the Teller House and had also known her husband and in-laws. She had obtained a divorce from Harvey Doe in March, 1880, for adultery and non-support, and shortly after arrived in Leadville.
Baby Doe said that it was “love at first sight” on her part. With Tabor, the feeling grew on him. She became his mistress almost immediately, but it was not until January, 1881, that he began to think of divorce and re-marriage. Augusta put her foot down. She refused successive overtures of a handsome settlement in return for a divorce.
Augusta knew what was going on. In December, 1880, she bought a third interest in the Windsor Hotel from Charles L. Hall of Leadville. The other third was owned by Bill Bush, who also managed the hotel, assisted by her son, Maxcy. In the next months Augusta used her ownership to check up regularly on activities at the hotel. When Tabor brought Baby Doe down from Leadville and installed her at the Windsor, the two women must have passed in the lobby frequently.
AUGUSTA’S CORNER WITH TREES—THEN AND NOW
When Augusta disposed of her last remaining lot at Seventeenth and Broadway, her trees were sold and transplanted to Wolhurst, Littleton.