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True Stories of Notorious Women of the Old West

“In a bet there is a fool and a thief.” Ancient Proverb

A covey of cowboys, tinhorns, and miners clustered around a faro table at the National Hotel in Nevada City, California. A pristinely dressed dealer gingerly placed a suit of spades across a brilliant green felt game cloth. Somewhere behind him a petite voice called out, interrupting the sound of shuffling cards and clinking chips. All eyes simultaneously turned to face the starling beauty making her way through the men towards the table, “Excuse me, boys,” the woman announced. “I’ve got a feeling this is my lucky day.”

Nineteen year old Jenny Rowe sashayed through the activity, smiling cheerfully as she went. She was lithe and slender and adorned in a sky-blue gingham dress that gently swept the floor when she walked. Her big, brown eyes scanned the cards on the table, and after a few moments she turned to the dealer and grinned. “Serve ‘em up,” she invited. The man nodded and encouraged the other gamblers surrounding the game to place their bets. A frenzy of hands tossed their chips onto the spades across the felt.

Jenny deposited a stack of chips on the green in between the numbers. “You sure about that?” one of the cowhands next to her asked.

“I don’t know a better way to put my money into circulation,” she responded kindly.

 To learn more about Jenny Rowe and other women gamblers read

The Lady Was a Gambler: True Stories of Notorious Women of the Old West

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True Stories of Notorious Women of the Old West

On July 9, 1871, two ragged, down-and-out prospectors walked into the Bank of California in San Francisco and approached a dignified-looking clerk waiting behind a giant oak desk. The two hungry-looking men quietly inquired about renting a safe-deposit box. The clerk eyed the unkempt miners suspiciously before answering.

“Why would you need such a box?” he asked impolitely.

The men exchanged a knowing look and, after glancing around the room to see if anyone was nearby, dropped a buckskin bag in front of the clerk. Just as the clerk was reaching for the bag, it tipped over and several sparkling diamonds toppled out. The clerk’s eyes opened wide.

“Diamonds,” he gasped. “Where did you get them?” “Oh, up in the mountains,” one of the men said casually. “We sort of figured we better have a safe place to keep them while we go up and get more.”

The clerk gladly rented them a safe deposit box. The two put the sack inside it and sauntered out of the bank, staring in the window at the splendor of the marble interiors.

Across town, Mary Hamlin, a young woman with a slim figure, a round gamine face, and golden blonde hair, peered expectantly out of her upstairs hotel-room window. When the two miners appeared on the dusty thoroughfare below, she opened the glass, casually took a seat on the sill, and glanced down at the men. She caught the prospectors’ eyes, and they nodded pleasantly to her as they passed.

To learn more about Mary Hamlin and how she acquired the diamonds read

The Lady Was a Gambler: True Stories of Notorious Women of the Old West

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True Stories of Notorious Women of the Old West

“The Dumont woman was vanity itself. Vain, moustached, always making airs.” San Francisco actor John Henry Anderson, 1869

A pair of miners squinted into the early morning sky as they rode out of the gold town of Bodie, California, toward their claim. Shafts of light poked through scattered clouds a few miles ahead on the rocky road. In the near distance the men spotted what looked like a bundle of clothing lying just out of reach of the sun’s tentacles. They speculated that some prospector must have lost his gear riding through the area, but as they approached the item, it was clear that it was not simply a stray pack. A woman’s body lay drawn in a fetal position, dead. The curious miners dismounted and hurried over to the unfortunate soul.

The vacant eyes that stared up at the men were those of the famed Eleanora Dumont, the Blackjack Queen of the Northern Mines. An empty bottle of poison rested near her lifeless frame, and her dusty face was streaked with dried tears. One of the miners covered her with a blanket from his bedroll while the other eyed the vultures circling overhead.

To learn more about Madame Mustache and other lady card players read

The Lady Was a Gambler: True Stories of Notorious Women of the Old West

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True Stories of Notorious Women of the Old West

“Man is a gaming animal. He must always be trying to get the better in something or other.” Charles Lamb, 1823

The New World gambling parlor in Marysville, California, in 1851 was filled with prospectors and sojourners eager to lay their money down on a game of chance. Patrons could choose from a variety of amusements, including roulette, dice, faro, and poker.

An elaborate bar lined an entire wall and brass mountings accentuated the gleaming countertops of the grand and ornate saloon. Imposing mirrors clung to all sides of the enormous entryway, and paintings of nude women relaxed in prostrate beauty loomed over the patrons from the walls above.

Madame Belle Ryan, a voluptuous creature with dark hair, hazel eyes, and a fair complexion, sauntered down the stairs surveying the guests who had gathered. Men scrambled for a place at the tables, their gold dust and gold nuggets exchanged for the chips they tossed onto the green felt-bets for the lucky cards in their hands.

 To learn more about Madame Belle Ryan and other lady card players read

The Lady Was a Gambler: True Stories of Notorious Women of the Old West

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True Stories of Notorious Women of the Old West

“Spirits of the good, the fair and the beautiful, guard us through the dreamy hours. Kinder ones, but, perhaps less dutiful, keep the places that once were ours.” Poetic editorial in memory of the slain Kitty LeRoy from the Black Hills Daily Times – 1883

A grim-faced bartender led a pair of sheriff’s deputies up the stairs of Deadwood’s Lone Star Saloon to the two lifeless bodies sprawled on the floor. One of the deceased individuals was a gambler named Kitty LeRoy and the other was her estranged husband, Sam Curley.

The quiet expression on Kitty’s face gave no indication that her death had been a violent one. She was lying on her back with her eyes closed and, if not for the bullet hole in her chest, would simply had looked as though she were sleeping. Sam’s dead form was a mass of blood and broken tissue. He was lying face first on the floor, and pieces of his skull protruded from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. In his right hand he still held the pistol that brought about the tragic scene.

For those townspeople who knew the flamboyant twenty-eight-year-old Kitty LeRoy, her violent demise did not come as a surprise. She was a voluptuous beauty who used her remarkable good looks to take advantage of infatuated men who believed her charm and talent surpassed any they’d ever known.

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The Lady Was a Gambler: True Stories of Notorious Women of the Old West