Lena Allen grew up in Minnesota when it was still the frontier. Even as a child, she was smart and didn’t mind expressing herself. She would be married four times and become a very wealthy woman who traveled the world. She was known for her fiery temper and domineering attitude.
When she was first married, Lena was only 15. Her first husband was a lawyer named Fred Webster. Heeding Horace Greeley’s encouragement, “Go west, young man, go west,” they moved to Leadville, Colorado, where Fred hung up his shingle in an untamed and boisterous new town. The marriage did not go well, and Fred disappeared, leaving Lena alone.
Lena filed for divorce in 1887 and moved to Denver, where she met a young mining engineer named Edward Stoiber. Edward had a stellar education in geology, surveying, and assaying. He and his brother Gus moved to Silverton, where they patented several claims above Arrastra Gulch and started a mine on the shores of Silver Lake, at 12,250 feet in elevation.
After they married, Edward and Lena worked together at the mine and soon had a very profitable business mining silver and gold, with 250 employees and a state-of the-art mill. Lena became a partner in the mining business and was known as being a fair but exacting employer. The miners called her “Captain Jack.” She was only the second woman in the United States elected into the American Association of Mining Engineers.
In a short time, Edward Stoiber was one of the richest men in Colorado. They built a house on lower Reese Street. Lena became angry at her neighbor, so she built a spite fence to block her view—and her neighbor’s as well. They built a 20-room mansion named Waldheim at the bottom of Arrastra Gulch. In addition to its regular living quarters, the house had a grand ballroom and gaming room and was electrically equipped.
Lena was the grande dame of Silverton, and everybody knew it. In 1900, American Mining and Smelting, a company owned by the Guggenheim brothers, bought the fabulous Silver Lake Mine for several million dollars, a huge amount at the time. Lena and Ed then began a grand tour of Europe and travelled extensively for several years.
They planned to build an elaborate mansion in Denver, but Ed contracted typhoid fever and passed away in 1906 in Paris. Lena brought his body back to America and built an ornate mausoleum for him at Fairmount Cemetery in Denver. Lena built the mansion, named Stoiberhof, and filled it with antiques and art that they had bought in Italy.
Because of her notorious temper, Lena built a spite fence around it after a fight with another neighbor. In 1909, Lena married her third husband, Hugh Rood, a millionaire timberman from the Northwest. They travelled extensively and ended up in London. Hugh had business to take care of, so he booked a room on the ill-fated Titanic and went down with the ship. Lena had decided to spend another week in London, so she was spared. She never quite believed that Hugh had died and spent a fair amount of money chasing rumors that he was alive.
In 1918, she married her fourth husband, Commander Mark St. Clair Ellis, USN. The marriage was short-lived because of his infidelity. She divorced him quickly and bought a luxurious villa in Stressa, Italy, where she lived for the last years of her life until 1935, when she passed away. Her extraordinary life has been chronicled by her great-great-grandniece in a new book, Lena, Silver Queen of the Gilded Age, on sale now at the Silverton Museum and other bookstores.
By Beverly Rich
