Volume 11 , Issue 39

1880 - Economics & Finance

Leadville, Colorado, storekeeper Horace "Hod" Tabor, 53, grubstakes two starving prospectors to $64.75 worth of provisions and ends up 10 months later owning silver mines including the Matchless that would earn him as much as $4 million per year. Tabor takes as his mistress the blonde, blue-eyed divorcee Elizabeth McCourt "Baby" Doe, 23, by buying off her previous protector. He divorced his wife and marries Baby Doe for whom he will build a Denver opera house and a mansion graced with nude statuary and 100 peacocks.

Some 539,000 Singer sewing machines were sold, up from 250,000 in 1875.

The DeBeers Mining Corporation was founded by English diamond mine operator Cecil John Rhodes, 27, and English financier Alfred Beit, also 27. The Barnato Diamond Mining Company was founded by English speculator Barnett Isaacs "Barney" Barnato, 28, whose firm would be consolidated with DeBeers in 1888 to give Cecil Rhodes a virtual monopoly in the South African diamond industry.
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