September 23rd, 2008

I’ll be making my way to Leadville, Colorado later this week. At one time Leadville had it all. It was a booming gold camp in 1860. Silver was discovered in 1878, a bonanza that in ten years had produced some $136 million. I can’t help but think of Baby Doe Tabor’s connection with the infamous mining town. Her husband, Horace Tabor, was a 47-year-old failed prospector-turned-grocer when he bought the Matchless Mine in 1878 and struck it rich. It was to net him $10 million. He had an affair with the opportunistic Baby Doe and the liaison scandalized Leadville and Denver society. Now of days that kind of behavior would barely raise an eyebrow. I hope to take lots of pictures of the area and enhance the sell of the books there. A man who was wrongfully convicted of murder is being executed in Georgia within the week. His family is going through a hundred kinds of hell on earth. I ache for them. I’ve learned much more than I ever wanted to know about wrongful convictions and false accusations that cost good people their lives. Wish there was someway to erase it all from my mind. I don’t think a trip to Leadville is going to do it.