Journal Notes

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

Throughout the history of the early gaming days of the Old West, women proved they were just as capable as men at dealing cards and throwing dice, and the brought both pleasure and heartache to the miners of the gold and silver camps. Lady gamblers such as Eleanora Dumont saw themselves simply as business women with a talent to offer the public. Players flocked to Madame Dumont’s entertainments, their money drawn from their pockets, ready to indulge in their all-absorbing passion for games of chance. Gertrudis Maria Barcelo owned her own gambling house in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where she catered to the rich and sophisticated in her pristine establishment. Cardsharps such as Kittle LeRoy flitted from Texas, California, and South Dakota, dealing hands at rowdy saloons from El Paso to Deadwood. The gambling den Kitty eventually owned was well known for the violence of her patrons, one of whom shot and killed her.

The lives and careers of a number of lady gamblers were cut short either at the mercy of a cowboy who resented losing to a woman or by their own hand. Legendary Belle Starr was gunned down by an unknown assailant some historians speculate was a riverboat gambler she humiliated at the poker table. Colorado cardsharp Minnie Smith found life dealing blackjack to be unbearably lonely and killed herself at the age of forty-five.

To learn more about these notorious women gamblers read

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

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“Four cowboys were at an old saloon in Tombstone playing poker. A lot of money was at stake as the cards were dealt, and each was keeping a sharp eye on the other. As one of the players called the hand and laid out his cards, another one stood up in amazement. ‘Hey, George is cheatin’. He ain’t playin’ the cards I dealt him.’ ”

An attractive, statuesque woman with golden blonde curls piled high on top of her head sat behind a large table in the back of the Pacific Club Gambling Parlor in San Francisco, California. She shuffled a deck of cards with great ease and gently dealt a hand to the four players surrounding her. A Saturday evening rainstorm had driven placer miners and unemployed farmhands to the saloon to try their luck at a game of poker. The dealer was a skilled gambler who had learned her trade on a Mississippi riverboat. She was an expert at luring proud men into a card game and then helping them part with the chunks of gold they’d earned.

The life of a professional gambler was unsettling and speculative. Most gamblers rode the circuit with the seasons. In the summer the big play was in the northern mining camps, and during the winter the southern towns provided the richest activity. Women gamblers were a rarity, and the most successful lady gamblers possessed stunning good looks, which helped disarm aggressive opponents and gave them something pretty to look at as they lost their money.

To learn more about intrepid 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

“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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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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“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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“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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“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

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“In one corner, a coarse-looking female might preside over a roulette-table, and, perhaps, in the central and crowded part of the room a Spanish or Mexican woman would be sitting at Monte, with a cigarette in her lips, which she replaced every few moments by a fresh one.” Author, lecturer, and feminist Eliza Farnham – 1854

Blood spattered across the front of the dark-eyed, brunette gambler Belle Siddon’s dress as she peered into the open wound of a bandit stretched out in front of her. Biting down hard on a rag, the man winced in pain as she gently probed his abdomen with a wire loop. Pausing a moment, she mopped up a stream of blood inching its way across the crude wooden table where he was lying. Two men on either side of the injured patient struggled to keep his arms and legs still as the stern-faced Belle then plunged the loop back into his entrails. “How do you know about gunshots?” one of the rough looking assistants asked. “My late husband was a doctor and I worked with him,” Belle replied. “Is he going to die?” the other man inquired. “Not if I can help it,” Belle said as she removed the wire loop.

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“Luck never gives; it only lends.” Anonymous

A tall, hump-shouldered man with gray, bushy hair and a hangdog look on his long, lumpy face pulled a stack of chips from the middle of the poker table toward him. Minnie Smith, the gambler who had dealt the winning hand, scowled at the player as he collected his earnings. “You’re sure packin’ a heavy load of luck, friend,” Minnie said in a low, clipped tone. “Luck had nothing to do with it,” the man replied. “You may be right at that,” Minnie snapped back. She pushed back from the table a bit and eyed the bullwhip curled in her lap. The man gave her a sly grin. “You’re not sore about losing?” he asked. “No,” Minnie responded calmly. “I get mighty sore about cheating though.”

A tense silence filled the air as Minnie and the gambler stared each other down. In the split second it took the man to jump up and reach for his gun. Minnie had snapped her whip and disarmed him. In the process of having the weapon jerked out of his hand, a breastplate holdout that had been tucked inside his jacket sleeve dropped onto the floor.

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

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Myra Maybelle Shirley also known as Belle Starr

“Shed not for her the bitter tear, nor give the heart in vain regret. Tis but the casket that lies here, the gem that filled it sparkles yet.” Inscription on Belle Starr’s tombstone, 1889

Belle Starr checked to make sure the pair of six-guns she was carrying was loaded before she proceeded across a dusty road toward a saloon just outside of Fort Dodge, Kansas. When she reached the tavern she peered over the top of the swinging doors of the establishment and carefully studied the room and its seedy inhabitants. Her thin face with his hawk-like nose was illuminated by a kerosene lantern hanging by the entrance.

She stepped inside the long, narrow, dimly lit room and slowly made her way to the gambling tables in the back. A battery of eyes turned to watch her walk by. Four men engrossed in a game of five-card draw barely noticed the woman approaching them. A tall man with an air of foreign gentility sat at the head of the table with his back to Belle, dealing cards. She removed one of the guns from her dress pocket and rested the barrel of the weapon on the gambler’s cheek.

To learn more about Belle Starr and other lady card players read

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