Carson City Leisure Hour Club members to learn of ‘Murder Most Foul’

Members of the Carson City Leisure Hour Club will share in the history of Laura D. Fair, fatal mistress. Four times married, twice widowed and twice divorced all by the age of 33, Laura Fair was the first woman in California sentenced to hang for the murder of her lover, Alexander Parker Crittenden in November of 1870.

Presented as a chautauqua character by Leisure Hour Club member Kim Copél-Harris, Laura Fair was perhaps a woman ahead of her time and in her business practices described as “better than she ought to be.”

She dreamt of wealth, but was never afraid to work for it — or to marry into it. Arriving in Virginia City, Nevada Territory in 1863, she ran the newly built Tahoe House as an upscale boarding house. This is where she met successful San Francisco attorney Alexander P. Crittenden. Her seven-year affair with Crittenden would catapult her on a journey of emotional ups and downs ending in his murder, for which she was eventually acquitted.

Harris is an accomplished chauatauquan who has portrayed six living history characters at various venues including the Genoa Cowboy Festival, Piper’s Opera House and the Lake Tahoe Chautauqua Festival. She has served on the Board of the Lake Tahoe Historical Society and the Douglas County Historical Society where she continues to volunteer. She also owns and operates Genoa Historic Ghost Tours, which is an historic walking tour of the town of Genoa and is the events manager at Dangberg Home Ranch Historic Park.

Born and raised at Donner Lake, Calif., Kim grew up immersed in the history of the West and enjoys not only sharing what she has learned about our history, but continuously learning from those who have lived it.

To attend the event, call the club’s reservation chair at 775-400-2647 no later than Feb. 9 to make a reservation. The meeting is preceded by a buffet dinner at 6 p.m. in the Carson Nugget Capitol Ballroom. Reservations for the meeting and dinner are required.

The Leisure Hour Club, established in September of 1896, is Carson City’s oldest continuously meeting social organization. Continuing to celebrate its 121st year, the organization is focused on its goal of promoting knowledge on important issues, science, music and literature.