Horace Tabor's 1879 Leadville opera house hosted gold-rush séances for packed houses and is reportedly haunted by a doorman, an actor, and a female patron — plus Tabor himself.
308 Harrison Ave, Leadville, CO 80461
Research updated June 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
$
Historic tours offered; admission fee applies. See website for current tour schedule and pricing.
Access
Limited Access
Three-story 1879 brick opera house; original stairways and stage areas
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Photos OK
Est. 1879 · NRHP Listed · Built by Horace Tabor, Leadville silver magnate · One of the first major opera houses west of the Mississippi · Site of documented Victorian-era séance performances · Hosted Houdini, Oscar Wilde, John Philip Sousa
Horace Austin Warner Tabor financed and opened the Tabor Opera House on Harrison Avenue in Leadville in 1879, at the height of the silver boom that made him one of the wealthiest men in Colorado. Tabor spent $78,000 on the three-story brick building, which seated approximately 880 people and was outfitted with gas-lit chandeliers, painted drop curtains, and a full stage house. Within months of opening, the opera house was hosting the leading performers of the era.
The building's roster through the 1880s included Harry Houdini, Oscar Wilde, and John Philip Sousa, as well as the touring theatrical companies that connected isolated mining camps to the national entertainment circuit. Séances were also performed on the Tabor stage for paying audiences, filling the house — a documented practice that contributed to the building's later paranormal associations.
Tabor's fortune collapsed after the 1893 repeal of the Sherman Silver Purchase Act, which ended federal silver price supports and gutted Leadville's economy overnight. Tabor died in 1899. The opera house changed hands multiple times before Evelyn Furman purchased it and managed it for decades as both a historic site and operating venue. Furman documented visitor and staff encounters with what she described as Horace Tabor's apparition — a figure matching his physical description seen in the building's public areas.
Author Erin Taylor included the Tabor Opera House in her published book 'Haunted Leadville' (Arcadia Publishing), and the Leadville Herald has covered the building's ghost stories, including the séance history and the apparition reports, in multiple articles. The building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Sources
The three recurring apparitions at the Tabor Opera House are not connected to violent death but to the building's performance history. The first is a former doorman, described in accounts from multiple witnesses and associated with the building's entrance and lobby areas. The second is an actor said to have died from drinking — an occupational hazard among the touring performers who passed through Leadville's circuit. The third is a female patron described as a regular attendee in the building's 19th-century operating years.
Evelyn Furman, who owned and operated the opera house for decades before her death, maintained records of visitor and staff encounters in the building. The most frequently reported was an apparition she and others identified as matching Horace Tabor's known physical description — tall, bearded, seen in the public areas of the building. Furman treated the accounts seriously and documented them as part of the building's operating history.
The Leadville Herald's coverage of 'Haunted Leadville,' the Arcadia Publishing book by Erin Taylor, cited the opera house séances — performed on stage for paying audiences — as a layer of historical context for the building's paranormal reputation. The séances were not metaphorical: they were ticketed events, documented in the era's local press, where performers attempted to contact the dead before crowds who had come specifically for that purpose.
Notable Entities
Media Appearances
Self-guided and docent-led tours of the original 1879 opera house, including the stage, balconies, dressing rooms, and the patron and performer spaces where paranormal accounts have been reported. The tour covers the building's history from the silver-rush era through séance performances and Evelyn Furman's decades as owner.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
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