Wicked Women

by Enss, Chris

  Historical records differ on Belle’s next move. Some maintain she quickly left Texas for New Orleans and found work dealing her favorite game. Others insist she stayed in the state, took a job teaching children how to read and write, and married a professional gambler she met on a short visit to Mexico. He too died, within the first year of their marriage. What is not disputed is that Belle Siddons turned her cardsharp abilities into a career. She honed her skills at gambling houses in Wichita, Ellsworth, Fort Hays, and Cheyenne, Kansas. She then used her substantial winnings to open her own place in Denver.

  Prospectors and businessmen who followed the news of the discovery of gold to Colorado spent time away from their strikes at Belle’s gaming establishment. At this time she was calling herself Madame Vestal. The new name provided the gambling den with a sophisticated air that drew clients to the gigantic tent that housed her business. Besides free drinks, the only enticement she offered customers was a fair game.

  Throughout the winters of 1875 and 1876, Belle’s establishment prospered, but as the gold played out, customers moved on and business slowed. Taking a cue from the eager miners in the area, she left Denver and headed for the rich mountains of South Dakota.

  A gold strike in the Black Hills saturated the peaceful territory with a collection of people who came to the emerging boomtown of Deadwood hoping to strike it rich. Belle made the move in style using a massive freight wagon called an omnibus. The interior of the spacious vehicle was elegantly decorated. Belle placed curtains on the windows and hung dried flowers on the canvas covering. The back half contained a bed and cook stove, and the front half featured gambling tables and a roulette wheel.

  The journey to Deadwood took six weeks. The trail was dusty and uncomfortable, but Belle was sure the move would be profitable. While en route to the new location, Belle decided she needed a more romantic-sounding handle and changed her moniker to Lurline Monte Verde. She felt that the new name not only was considerably more enchanting, but also would be good for business because it made mention of her game of expertise.

  Her grand entrance into town turned the heads of the numerous residents lining the main thoroughfare. Curious miners followed her wagon to its stopping point, and upon learning that she was a lady gambler who had come to open a gaming house there, they lifted her off the vehicle and paraded her through the camp.

  Belle opened the door to her gambling parlor on June 21, 1876, and began ushering greedy patrons inside. The Black Hills Pioneer dedicated an entire article to the female entrepreneur, adding that she was not only a “flawlessly groomed beauty, artfully jeweled and gowned,” but “a total abstainer of spirits as well.”

  A steady stream of customers from every walk of life strode in and out of Belle’s gaming house. Soldiers, outlaws, lawmen, businessmen, and Indian scouts tried their luck at a game of poker against her. In no time she made a fortune of gold and earned a reputation as one of the finest lady gamblers in the West.

  Many men would have liked to have been more to Belle than just a patron at her house, but she was steadfast against mixing business with pleasure. After meeting an ex-teamster named Archie McLaughlin, Belle reconsidered her position.

  McLaughlin was a mountain of a man with an engaging smile. One evening he pulled up a chair opposite the instantly smitten dealer and promptly lost every dime he’d brought to the table. As he shrugged his shoulders and started to make his way out, Belle stopped him and offered to stake him to the next morning’s breakfast. The grateful man introduced himself as Archie Cummings and promised to repay her kindness.

  While Belle waited for the handsome acquaintance to reappear, he busied himself robbing stages. It turned out that her new romantic interest was the leader of a gang of highwaymen terrorizing travelers along the Cheyenne–Deadwood trail. The lack of law enforcement in the boomtown made it easy for such crimes to go on. Most residents were aware of McLaughlin’s activities, but Belle was not among them.

  The unsuspecting Belle welcomed McLaughlin into her gambling house a week after their first meeting. The two gambled again, and this time the thief had better luck. Before leaving he asked Belle to have dinner with him the following evening. She graciously accepted.

  News of Belle and McLaughlin’s rendezvous reached the bartender at her casino, and he made Archie’s true identity known to his boss. Much to the young man’s surprise, Belle did not seem to care. McLaughlin had so captivated her interest that nothing could persuade her from seeing him again.

  In spite of McLaughlin’s illegal pursuits, Belle allowed herself to fall in love with him. She was drawn to his reckless behavior. They spent a great deal of time together, and he was as taken with her as she was with him. Her misguided affections for him prompted her to share with him information she overheard in her casino. Belle made McLaughlin aware of every gold shipment passing through and of every miner with a purse full of nuggets. The gambler’s lover took full advantage of the news she gave him, robbing individuals and hijacking rich stages.

  Unbeknownst to either Belle or McLaughlin, the couple was being watched by the Wells Fargo chief of detectives, James B. Hume, and a hired gunman named Boone May. Boone was a frequent guest at Belle’s place and had an opportunity to hear some of the same information that found its way to Belle. During one of his visits, he learned that McLaughlin and his men were planning to hold up a gold freighted stage in Whoop-Up Canyon, a run between Rapid City and Deadwood. Under cover of darkness Wells Fargo agents and a number of Boone’s men rode out to the location and waited for McLaughlin to make his move.

  Moments after the stage entered the tree-lined canyon, McLaughlin’s gang sprang into action. They leveled their guns at the frightened driver, but before they could get a shot off, the outlaws were suddenly assaulted with a hail of gunfire coming from all around them.

  McLaughlin and his gang managed to flee the scene, but not before being badly shot up and losing one rider to a bullet in the head. The surviving desperados took refuge in a hidden cabin embedded in a thick copse of trees. They nursed their wounds for more than a week before McLaughlin sent for help for the most critically injured of his men. He knew Belle was once a doctor’s assistant, and he got word to her that she was needed.

  Belle did not hesitate to respond to McLaughlin’s plea. She pulled together medicines and supplies and hurried to meet him. Her services proved to be invaluable, as she managed to save the life of every wounded gangster in McLaughlin’s company. Belle’s kindness was not returned with praise and thanks, however. Instead, the ruthless thieves wanted to kill her to keep her from revealing their location. McLaughlin drew his gun and held the robbers at bay until Belle escaped the hideout safely.

  Belle returned to Deadwood, and the outlaws fled the area. With the exception of one, all escaped without any trouble. The wounded man Belle had operated on was quickly apprehended by authorities, confessed to the crime, and implicated the other members of the gang in the process.

  Boone and Hume formed a posse and within three months had captured McLaughlin and the other runaway bandits holed up in Cheyenne, Wyoming. The men were escorted back to Deadwood to stand trial, but before they reached their destination, vigilantes overtook the coach. The prisoners were unloaded and lynched.

  When news of her lover’s death reached Belle, she was so torn by grief she swallowed a small vial of poison, hoping to join him in death. The suicide attempt was unsuccessful. She sank into a deep depression and began neglecting her business and personal appearance. She turned to opium to alleviate the sadness, but to no avail. In early 1879 Belle sold her gambling house and drifted from one western town to another.

  In Leadville she opened a dance hall; in Denver she ran a gaming parlor; in Cripple Creek, El Paso, and Tombstone she dealt cards and lived off her winnings. By then her addiction to opium had grown out of control, and as a result her health began to rapidly fail. In mid-1880 she moved to San Francisco, where she ho
ped to put her life back together. She welcomed card players to a monte table she rented at a local saloon near the wharf. Her skills as a gambler never faltered, but she spent nearly all of her winnings on alcohol and drugs.

  Waves of unhappiness continued to crash around her, and she sought relief with a lethal combination of whiskey and opium. When police raided an opium den in October 1881, Belle was one of the customers arrested. The daily newspaper reported the event and noted that “she was well supplied with funds, but at death’s door from alcoholism and drug use.”

  During an examination by the police physicians, it was discovered that Belle’s ill health was not due only to her deadly vices. She also was suffering from terminal cancer. The frail lady gambler was admitted to a hospital, treated, and later died.

  Belle Siddons etched her name into western folklore and is remembered by historians as a vivacious, seductive cardsharp who sacrificed everything for a desperate road agent.

  Mattie Silks

  Denver’s Red Light Royalty

  “I went into the sporting life for business reasons and for no other. It was a way for a woman in those days to make money, and I made it. I considered myself then and I do now—as a business woman. I operated the best house in town and I had as my clients the most important men in the West.”

  Mattie Silks, 1926

  Mattie Silks made her way through a crowd assembled at the Lucky Chance Saloon and headed toward a wooden staircase that led to a bank of occupied rooms. Every cowhand in Colorado seemed to be drinking and gambling at the popular Denver establishment. A piano player pounded out a standard on an out-of-tune upright. Several men jumped to their feet, grabbing any public woman within reach and twirling them around. The laughing, drunken dancers paid no attention to Mattie as she pushed past them, and she was equally oblivious to them.

  The stairs groaned under her heavyset form and she stumbled a bit over her long, billowing skirt before lifting the fabric to her ankles. Her attractive, round face was streaked with tears and her eyes were stern and focused. She fingered the ivory-handled pistol in the hidden pocket of her outfit, making sure the weapon was there and ready for quick use.

  She paused at the top of the landing, gazing steely eyed down the long corridor. A cacophony of sounds emanated from behind the closed doors on either side of the hall. She stopped in front of the first door and listened. She did the same at the second door. Standing outside the third door she heard a man’s familiar voice speaking softly to a woman, who responded with a playful giggle.

  Mattie Silks, Queen of Denver’s red-light district, in the finery her business sense allowed her to afford

  Fred Mazzulla collection, Scan #10026978, History Colorado, Denver, Colo.

  Mattie’s hand reached out for the doorknob and stopped. The urge to burst into the room was overwhelming, and for a moment she fought to curb her fury. But the muffled sound of two people kissing persuaded her to throw open the door and remove her gun in the process.

  Cortez Thomson, a tall, lean, sandy-haired Texan with a handlebar mustache, looked up at the intruder. Lillie Dab, the rumpled, red-headed woman under him, did the same. A long, awkward silence passed among the three. What to do next was anyone’s guess. More out nervousness than anything else, Cort began to laugh. Lillie followed suit, and soon the pair was in stitches over the scene. Mattie’s blue eyes burned with rage. She aimed her gun at Lillie and squeezed the trigger. Lillie screamed and grabbed her head. Horrified, Lillie glanced down at the sheet, expecting to see blood; instead she saw two of her long curls lying beside her. The shot had missed her body and clipped off her hair.

  Cort jumped up and scrambled for his holster and gun, which were draped across the bedframe. Mattie turned her weapon his direction and fired a shot into the floorboard next to his feet. Lillie screamed again, and Cort quickly decided against going for his gun. Mattie shot at the headboard directly behind the other woman. Lillie rolled out of bed and crawled toward the door. Mattie cocked the gun again and leveled it at the naked woman. Another round went off into the floor, barely missing Lillie. Cort hit Mattie over the head with the butt of the gun he had managed to reach. She fell in a heap beside the scuffed wood now splintered with gunfire.

  Mattie Silks, “the Queen of Denver’s Red-Light District,” was involved in more than one violent altercation over her lover, Cort Thomson. Her fearless attempts to hold onto her man by any means possible and the sheer number of guests who frequented her palatial brothel made her one of the most renowned madams in the West.

  Born in 1847 on a small farm in Kansas, Mattie was a vivacious child with massive potential. By her mid-teens she was a curvaceous brunette with sultry blue eyes and a head for business. At an early age she displayed an exceptional aptitude for managing prostitutes. By the time she was eighteen years old, she had worked as a public woman in Abilene and Dodge City. At nineteen she was managing a profitable parlor house in Springfield, Illinois.

  Historians can only speculate how Mattie acquired her handle. Some suggest she took the name Silks from a man she once knew in Kansas. Others claim her love of silk material prompted clients to refer to her as Madam Silks.

  After hearing that thousands of men were moving into the boomtowns and cow towns of Colorado, Mattie decided to purchase a parlor house in Georgetown. Georgetown was called the “Silver Queen of the Rockies.” Twenty-three thousand dollars a year in silver was being pulled out of the hills in the area in the early 1870s. Mattie’s brothel collected a large portion of those riches.

  The employees at Mattie’s house were considered to be the “fairest frails in town.” She was particular about the women she hired and required them to meet certain standards.

  “I never took a girl into my house that had had no previous experience of life and men,” recalled Mattie in 1926. “That was a rule of mine. . . . No innocent, young girl was ever hired by me. Those with experience came to me for the same reasons that I hired them. Because there was money in it for all of us.”

  An evening of pleasure with one of her ladies cost anywhere from $10 to $200. Madam Silks claimed 40 percent of that income for herself. In exchange she provided her staff with comfortable rooms, meals, and laundry service. By 1855 Mattie was one of the wealthiest businesswomen in the trade.

  Mattie’s charm and success attracted numerous men, but she shunned many of their advances. It wasn’t until she met Cortez D. Thomson that she decided to share her life with another. Cort was unlike the other men who had called on her. He was not a miner or a cowboy, but a foot runner. Lithe and agile, he raced challengers for large sums of money. The flamboyant racer wore pink tights and star-spangled trunks when he ran, and gamblers and the curious would turn out in droves to watch him compete. Mattie was captivated by Cort’s good looks and confident air. He was drawn to her charm and money.

  Ignoring the fact that Cort was married and had a child in Texas, Mattie entered into a relationship with him. In 1876 Madam Silks relocated to Denver. The prospect of making even more money enticed her to the growing town. Cort naturally followed.

  Mattie’s fashionable Denver brothel was a three-story brick mansion with twenty-seven rooms. It was nicely decorated and well furnished. Mattie greeted clients at her magnificent wooden front door. They were then escorted into the main parlor and serenaded by an orchestra. It was there that they had a chance to get acquainted with the beautiful and elegantly dressed boarders. Mattie kept the names of her regular customers on a list.

  “I never showed that list to anyone,” she told a newspaper reporter in 1926. “If a man did not conduct himself as a gentleman, he was not welcome nor ever permitted to come again. And his name was removed from the list,” she concluded.

  Madam Silk’s parlor house was one of the most expensive brothels in Denver. Mattie’s weekly income was staggering, and Cort quickly grew accustomed to an extravagant lifestyle. He and Ma
ttie enjoyed the finest foods and wines and purchased tailor-made clothes from Paris. Cort spent a great deal of Mattie’s wealth betting on horse races. He generally lost more than he won. On those rare occasions when he did win, he made small purchases for Mattie. One such item was a diamond-encrusted cross. She wore the cross on a long chain around her neck, and it became her trademark.

  Historians at the Denver Museum estimate that Cort spent or gambled away more than $75,000 of Mattie’s money. In addition to squandering her finances, he betrayed her with other women. The most notable was a rival madam named Kate Fulton.

  Cort’s relationship with the lovely and tempestuous Kate had been a simple dalliance to him, but she perceived it as much more. Kate vigorously pursued Cort and desperately tried to get him to leave Mattie. Mattie knew about the affair and for the most part was able to overlook Cort’s indiscretion. On August 24, 1877, however, she was forced to deal with the persistent Madam Fulton once and for all.

  Mattie and Cort hosted a grand celebration at the posh Olympic Gardens to announce their engagement—despite the inconvenient fact that Cort was still married to his first wife. Kate maneuvered her way into the party and accused Mattie of “stealing her man.” The pair’s verbal sparring escalated into a gunfight.

  Anxious guests and townspeople lined Denver’s Colfax Avenue to watch the women settle their differences with pistols. Mattie and Kate stood back to back, pistols at the ready. After pacing off a short distance, they turned and fired on one another. When the smoke cleared, the only person down was Cort.

  Both Mattie’s and Kate’s bullets had missed their mark, but one of Kate’s rounds had hit Cort in the neck. Mattie hurried to her lover’s side and stemmed the flow of blood from the flesh wound with a lace handkerchief. She then escorted Cort to the hospital. Law enforcement officials took Kate to jail in restraints. Local newspapers referred to the incident as “a disgraceful occurrence of the fast element.”