Colorado has a colorful history.  Until 1870, when a railroad spur from the north to Denver was established, the state (then a territory) was fairly isolated from the rest of the nation.  A small gold deposit was discovered on the banks of Cherry Creek in 1859 and this is where Denver, the capital city, sprouted.  Silver, though, was what brought even more people to the state.  The 1880s saw numerous large silver strikes, creating overnight millionaires, including the famous Horace Tabor.  In 1893, with the Sherman Silver Purchase Act, silver lost much of its value, and Colorado, which had been producing nearly 60% of the country's silver, plunged into a depression.   The silver era was over, and it took a long time for the state to recover from this severe economic blow.  

An assortment of infamous characters have spent time in or made Colorado their home, including Calamity Jane, Vaso Chucovich, Soapy Smith, Butch Cassidy and Doc Holiday.  The most famous resident, though, may be Baby Doe Tabor.   A divorcee who became the mistress of silver king Horace Tabor, who happened to be married and the state's Lt. Governor (and later senator), she become the "Silver Queen," one of the richest people in the United States, when she married the finally-divorced Tabor in 1885.   

It was a fantasy life until the silver crash of 1893 when the Tabors lost nearly everything they had. Horace Tabor died 6 years later and on his deathbed told Baby to hold onto the Matchless Mine, one of Tabor's silver mines in Leadville, Colorado, where he had earlier struck it rich.  He told Baby that the Mine would make millions when the price of silver came back.  Baby Doe did as Tabor asked and eventually left Denver, moved back to Leadville and into a cabin behind the Matchless Mine to save money on rent.  As the years passed, Baby, alone and destitute, would wrap her feet in gunny sacks held on with twine.  With the help of creditors and through the kindness of her Leadville neighbors, she managed to scrape her way through life.

In 1935, a severe blizzard slammed into little Leadville, Colorado.   The next day, Baby's frozen body was found on the floor of her cabin, arms outstretched, in the shape of a cross.  Once one of the richest people in the U.S. during the 1880's, she died a pauper and a recluse, never to recapture the glory of her "Silver Queen" days.