(These pages correspond to the content shown on the digital screen panels at the Temple Israel Museum.)
Not unlike other western mining towns, Leadville was a place where the miners worked arduously and played equally hard when the day was done. In the 1880s, the options for entertainment and amusement were plentiful. A miner could spend his newfound bounty on liquor, women, or gaming at any one of the 120 saloons, 150 gambling rooms, 35 brothels, and two opera houses. Leadville Jews operated concerns in all of these categories. One such of these establishments was Hyman’s Club Rooms owned and operated by Manny Hyman. Notorious for its rowdy atmosphere and barroom brawls, Hyman’s lives on in western folklore as the scene of Doc Holliday’s last gunfight on August 19, 1884, which was terminated when Holliday was disarmed and collared by Henry Kellerman, a Jewish deputy sheriff. Fortunately, no one was killed, but the incident was significantly destructive to Holliday’s already soiled reputation, and he left town immediately afterwards to nurse his deteriorating health in Glenwood Springs where he died of tuberculosis on November 8, 1887.
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