Journal Notes

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More Tales Behind the Tombstones:

More Deaths and Burials of the Old West’s Most Nefarious, Outlaws, Notorious Women, and Celebrated Lawmen

Visitors walking through the graveyards often find themselves stepping over weeds that have grown around fallen headstones. Sadly, the final resting place for many small families and communities has been left unattended or even forgotten. The seasons have taken with them the names chiseled in the granite, nearly erasing all memory of those mourned beneath the dilapidated tombstones.

Aside from the normal life and death cycle in New England, it is estimated that one in every seventeen people died on the journey west from 1847 to 1900. Oftentimes the men, women, and children who died en route to the gold hills of California and Colorado, or the fertile farmlands of the Pacific Northwest, were buried on the spot where they died. A proper burial and lengthy funeral were forfeited in favor of pushing on to the far-off destination. Traveling across the plains demanded that sojourners be constantly on the move. The threat of bad weather, hostile Indians, wild animals, or desperados kept pioneers from staying too long in one area.

Contrary to popular belief, the thousands of settlers who perished on the trail west did not solely die in gunfights or Indian attacks. Scorching deserts, starvation, and dehydration claimed many lives. Poor sanitation bred typhoid, cholera, and pneumonia. Blood poisoning brought on by a cut or scrape from a sharp object, or shock from an accident, such as a wagon spilling over with travelers inside, brought about numerous deaths as well.

There were pioneers, though, who could not be persuaded to forgo a ceremonial funeral if they lost a loved one. Nothing could keep them from burying the deceased in a plot where they could be remembered. A section of ground in a scenic location with trees to shade the grave was the preferred spot. To leave someone dear in an unmarked plot was impossible for some to accept.

As pioneers established homesteads and built towns around their farms and ranches, the dead were buried either in family cemeteries near where they had lived or next to churches where they worshipped. For nineteenth-century ancestors, it was important to remember death. The fact of death served as a reminder to those who continued on to persevere and do good works as preparation for a final judgment by a righteous God.

Whatever the cause of death or wherever it occurred, the need to take care of a deceased person’s remains was a necessity. Until the discovery of formaldehyde in 1867, and the subsequent introduction of the product and its use as an acceptable embalming method in America in 1872, there were limited ways to deal with the dead. Immediate burial was preferred. If a person died in the winter and the ground was frozen and a grave could not be dug, the body was stored in a barn or woodshed until the earth thawed and the departed could be buried.

As in the cities, carpenters in mining camps or cattle towns were usually the undertakers, since they had the tools and supplies to build coffins. The wooden caskets might be lined with white linen if it was supplied by the deceased’s family or friends. Sextons, people who looked after a church and churchyard, would determine where in the cemetery a person was to be buried. They would also dig the grave and fill it again.

People who lived in small towns would often gather at the graveyard where the coffin was placed atop two sawhorses. For those who lived in less rural areas, there were hearses to rent to transport the dead from the undertaker’s office to the cemetery. The vehicle had glass sides and was decorated with elaborate carvings and brass ornaments. On top were tall, shako-like plumes, one on each corner.

While cemeteries house the dead, the tombstones record not only their pleasures, sorrows, and hopes for an afterlife, but also more than they realize of their history, ethnicity, and culture. In this book are true stories about thirty real people who are buried in marked and unmarked graves throughout the frontier and elsewhere. How these famous and infamous individuals lived and then exited this world is reflected on their headstones. Tales of their demise add details of their courage, adventure, hardship, and joy not included on those tombstones.

The dead included in the book More Tales Behind the Tombstones will never exhaust their potential to enlighten.

In Dodge City, Kansas, the important men made their headquarters at the Long Branch Saloon, opening in 1883 by Charles Bassett, Ford County’s first Sheriff, and A. J. Peacock.  The Long Branch offered a high-toned sporting atmosphere, with only top-grade liquor served at the bar.  Its customers included railroad men, cattle kings, buffalo hunters, and travelers.  The saloon took its name from the celebrated sporting resort on the Atlantic seaboard, since many of the men in Dodge came from the Eastern states.  There was no “Miss Kitty” and no dancing in the original Long Branch.  In 1876, there were nineteen placed licensed to sell liquor in Dodge.  Other well-known saloons on Front Street were Beatty and Kelley’s Alhambra; A. B. Webster’s Alamo; Muellar and Straeter’s Old House Saloon; the Opera House Saloon; the Junction Saloon; and the Green Front.  Of course, all the dance halls and most of the hotels had bars, and no one in Dodge was more than one hundred yards from some place of liquid refreshment, open seven days a week, twenty-four hours a day.  When a new saloon was opened or a new management took over, a magnificent free lunch was laid out and the men were expected to come to the joint to celebrate.

As railroad service improved and Dodge became more prosperous, carload after carload of beer rolled in every summer.  In July 1879, a facetious note appeared in the Dodge City Times:

“A young lady, Miss Ann Heiser, is stopping the city at present.  A great many gentlemen have called upon her and express themselves well pleased with her general appearance.  The early criticism we have heard made is that the length of her neck is a little out of proportion to that of her body. The ‘out of proportion’ is to enable the fellows to embrace the neck.  Ann Heiser is a delusion too many persons hug.  It brings them to their beer.”

To learn more about sporting women like Miss Ann Heiser read the book Wicked Women.

In 1898, Dawson City in the Yukon Territory was the heart of the richest gold country on the continent.  To its theaters and dance halls the miners came for relief from the long, lonely hours spent working on their claims.  They laughed, drank, and threw their gold dust recklessly about.  The amenities offered in Dawson City were few, but basic:  drink, a woman, and a place to unload his gold dust.  Every other building carried the sign, “Gold Dust Bought,” while the rest catered to his sensual needs.

Mattie Silks, the notorious Denver courtesan, was on board the Susie on the last down-river trip of the 1898 season.  She was leaving Dawson because her gambler-lover, Cortez Thompson, could not stand the bitter rain and snot of the Klondike.  Mattie and Cortez had come to Dawson City figuring that the special merchandise Mattie offered was in far greater demand in the northern reaches than in Denver.  The Dawson City Mattie found looked much the same as the towns of the American prairie and Rockies.  Built on a flat in a bend of the river, Dawson was a collection of hastily erected log and frame shanties, a little larger than its neighbor, Lousetown.

Jenkins, proprietor of the Sour Dough saloon, rented Mattie a good-sized frame building on Second Street for $350.00 a month.  Her leading competitor was Beatrice Larne.  Mattie’s expenses were high, but her total receipts were enormous.  Each of her girls was earning about fifty dollars a day, even after paying Mattie her fifty per cent of the take plus board.  Mattie’s sales of liquid refreshments brought huge profits, for she sold champagne for thirty dollars a quart with the boarder’s cut on each being only five dollars.  Whiskey was fifty cents a shot, but there was no beer or gin in Dawson.  Most of the whiskey was made from grain alcohol which cost sixty dollars a gallon; when diluted and colored and sold by the drink, the gallon brought in over $130.

Mattie brought along the old gold scales she once used at Georgetown and a little square of thick carpet to catch the dust which spilled from the scales.  As usual, Cortez was no help with the business, because he spent most of his time playing faro at Joe Cooper’s Dominion Saloon.  Late in the summer, Cortez developed a heavy cold and treated it with his favorite remedy, whiskey.  Mattie, too, couldn’t stand the constant downpour which left Dawson’s streets ankle-deep in mud.  All around her, Mattie saw evidence of colds which developed into pneumonia, and she dreaded the approach of the long Artic winter.  She wanted to go home to Denver, so she squared up Cortez’s gambling debts and booked passage on the Susie, taking back a net profit of $38,000 for her ninety days at Dawson City.

To learn more about Mattie Silks and other sporting women in the

Old West read Wicked Women.

It wasn’t uncommon in the Old West for sporting women to fight with one another over territory or money.  In El Paso, Texas, competition was especially keen between two popular madams, Big Adam Abbott and quick-tempered Etta Clark across the street.  The continuous argument finally erupted in a fight, the mention of which brought uproarious guffaws in the saloons for months to come.  Around 9:30 on the warm spring evening of April 18, 1886, a police squad was sent to investigate a disturbance at one of the houses on Utah Street.  The whole area was in an uproar as a huge woman lay shot and bleeding in the dusty street, while a petite redhead, cruelly beaten, sobbed hysterically in one of the houses.

The officers somehow pieced together the story.  Bessie Colvin, one of Big Alice’s in-residence girls, owed her $125 “back rent,” but refused to pay up.  Bessie, full of whiskey and false courage, stood firm as she and Alice put on a screaming and cursing match which awed all passersby.  Bessie flounced out, dashed across to Etta Clark’s brothel, and offered her services.  Redheaded Etta promptly accepted, so Bessie tore back to her former home, told Big Alice she was leaving, then promptly took off again.  Big Alice, with her girls Nina Ferrall and Josie Connaly at her heels, huffed and puffed across the street.  Alice yelled and pounded on Etta’s door until it was opened a crack.  Big Alice flung herself against the door, ripping it from the hinges and mashing Etta’s face in the process.  At this moment, Alice spied her former girl walking out of Etta’s sitting room.

Enraged, Alice stomped on through the broken door, shoving Etta violently aside.  The redheaded Etta, deciding she needed protection, reached for a brass gas-lighter.  (This was a heavy wick-tipped rod 2 ½ feet long and ½ inch in diameter, used to light the gas burners.)  The tiny Etta drew herself up and shook the lighter in Big Alice’s face.  Bessie was whimpering in the corner.  Now Alice, blind with anger, raised her huge fist and hit Etta in the face as hard as she could.  Bessie ran to help Etta, but was grabbed by Alice, who ran out the door, pulling Bessie along with her.

Etta ran to her room and came back with a Colt .45 in her hand.  She pointed the weapon at Big Alice, who was facing her on the porch.  The gun went off, enveloping both women in a cloud of smoke.  Alice looked down in horror at the blood spreading from a spot between her thighs.  She staggered to the center of the street as Etta fired again and missed.

It took six strong men to carry the big woman to her house.  It made a dramatic scene:  the helpless female, the girls weeping and wailing, and the men straining and stumbling under their mammoth burden.  Doctor A. L. Justice was called and, upon arriving at the scene, reported that Big Alice was seriously wounded.  Etta Clark was put in jail pending a hearing.

By April 27, nine days later, Big Alice was out of danger and the preliminary trial was held in her room.  Justice L. H. Clark bound Etta over to the Grand Jury under $2,000 bond.

Nothing funny about this, you say?  True enough-but it was the aftermath of this unfortunate incident that sent El Paso rocking with laughter.  The Herald’s story was printed under a banner headline with all the details in typically turgid prose.  The reporter, trying to be precise in pinpointing Alice’s wound, wrote that Big Alice had been shot in the “public” arch.  In Alice’s case, this anatomical description was precise, indeed.

To learn more about soiled doves of the Old West read Wicked Women.

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One of the many fabulous and colorful characters of the California gold rush was Eleanore Dumont, known as Madam Moustache, who made her headquarters in Nevada City, California, for a while.  According to the legend, Eleanore was a beautiful French woman who bore a slight growth of fuzz over her upper lip.  One evening, a tired and thoroughly drunk miner made the trip to town to see the much-talked-of beauty.  He took a look and yelled, “She’s pretty, for sure, but look at her moustache.”  From that time on, Eleanore Dumont was laughingly called Madam Moustache.

The Nevada City establishment of Madam Moustache was a bit plusher than the average gold-camp bar.  It contained a long, rough-boarded room which was fully fifty feet in length.  The walls were draped with colored cloth and imported from France.  The Madam boasted the fanciest bar in California, behind which the gin slingers served fifty men at a time.  At one end of the room was a cleared space for dancing and an orchestra of fifteen pieces.  The rest of the space was taken up by twelve or more tables for poker, twenty-one, or monte.

When Nevada City’s boom collapsed, so did Madam Moustache’s parlor house.  Eleanore began moving from one camp to another, her fortunes gradually declining.  Her beauty faded, she drank too much, and a darker shadow of down was growing on her upper lip.  The Madam’s gaming skills began slipping too – ever so slightly, but an extra drink or two can make all the difference at cards.  In 1859, with the discovery of the rich diggings of Nevada’s Comstock Lode, she joined the Washoe rush.  By 1860, it was common knowledge the Madam was no longer deigned to make money other than at the vingt-et-un table.

Eleanore roamed across the West, following the new mining camps to Idaho and then the Black Hills.  As her fortunes continued to plummet, she resumed the sale of her own flesh, offering her services in the construction camps along the route of the Union Pacific Railroad.  In 1877, Madam Moustache was running a small-time brothel in Eureka, Nevada; two years later, the Sacramento Union of September 9, 1879, ran a brief dispatch from Bodie, California: “A woman named Eleanore Dumont was found dead today about one mile out of town, having committed suicide.”

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The soiled dove with the heart of gold is a stock character in thousands of stories about the Old West, and Idaho had such a character.  “Diamond-tooth Lil” was her name, and she was more famous for her tooth of gold than for her heart of gold.  Like most characters in western lore, Lil devoted her lifetime to perfecting her own legend and image.  Her gold tooth, prominent in the middle of her smile, was set with a large diamond to gain Lil instant recognition in any company.  And Lil loved it.  From childhood she had thirsted for fame.

All we know about Lil’s colorful life comes from her own stories, recounted through the years to just about anyone who would listen.  Whether her stories were true or not does not seem too important, for they make good telling.  Mae West’s characterization of “Diamond Lil” was based on the life of Idaho’s Lil, and in all accounts of her life, the stress lay on Diamond-tooth Lil’s beauty and glamor.  Words like “fabulous and exciting” are regularly used to describe her, although it was not Lil’s looks but her vitality and sense of showmanship which evoked such adjectives.

Evelyn Hildegarde was born Katie Prado near Vienna, Austrian, about 1880.  It appears that she and her parents-an Austrian father and a Bohemian mother-came to America when Katie was six-years-old.  When Katie ran away from home, she was only thirteen, but she was quite mature for her age and looked sixteen.  She had eloped with nineteen-year-old Percy Hildegarde and used his last name the rest of her life.

By her own account, Lil had a total of eight husbands, never worrying about ridding herself of a husband, but just taking another when the mood struck her.

Among the men in her life were some pretty colorful characters:  prizefighter Kid McCoy, Spider Kelly, Diamond-field Jack Davis, Tex Rickard, and Tom Sharkey.  Diamond-tooth Lil’s friendship with Diamond-field Jack was a natural.  The swaggering Jack had plenty of color all his own; although notorious as a gunman, his chief claim to fame was that he was almost hung for a murder he did not commit.  Perhaps Jack was the inspiration for Lil’s famous tooth, for she did not have one when they met in 1907 in the boomtown of Goldenfield, Nevada.

Lil had been singing and dancing in music halls and gambling palaces for several years before she ran up against Jack.  She was the “toast of the Barbary Coast,” and a star at the St. Louis World’s Fair in 1904, singing at the Anheuser-Busch Pavilion.  But somewhere along the way she got in on the gold rush to Alaska, then came back south to Silver City, Idaho.  Boise was her home from 1909 until 1943, during which time she ran rooming houses and opened the Depot Inn in 1933.  Diamond-tooth Lil’s experience as a “business woman” began years before, for she claimed she was a madam from the time she was thirteen, and ran large houses in Chicago, St. Louis, New York, and Seattle.

One of her “’bosses” in Chicago was said to be Al Capone, and it is no surprise that Lil was not repelled by the violence of the gangster era.  Lil herself had had a taste of violence years before, when she was shot at by an ex-husband in El Paso, Texas.  Charitable and generous, Lil felt a special sympathy for orphans, and when she left Boise for the warmer climate of California, she promised to will her famous tooth to the Boise Children’s Home.  But she died in California in 1967 at age eighty-nine, and the tooth which made her famous, was buried with her.

For more information about Diamond Lil read

Wicked Women:  Notorious, Michievous, and Wayward Ladies

from the Old West.  

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For many years, the town of Pueblo, Colorado, boasted one of the most wide-open tenderloin districts of the West.  The townspeople gave tacit if not explicit consent to the thriving business in flesh all the way into the twentieth century, until the bawds left their district to parade downtown on April 18, 1903.  The invasion of sinners was described on page one of the Pueblo Star-Journal the next day:

“Shamelessness Runs Riot Without Interference of Police”

Dissolute women raided the sidewalks of Santa Fe Avenue between First and Fourth Streets last evening and accosted passersby without let or hinderance from the police.  No less than four complaints were made to the Star-Journal by Santa Fe Avenue businessmen who protested the conditions were such that reputable people were being driven away from the neighborhood.  Investigations showed that the complaints were to be well grounded and the state of things prevail such as would not be tolerated in any city where the police department was required by order from the executive, from whom it must come, to enforce even a reasonable degree of decency.  Well-known businessmen informed the Star-Journal not only last night, but other nights, they have made specific complaints at police headquarters without result and without securing other reply than a mocking laugh.  The Star-Journal does not propose that such things shall continue and it now directs the personal attention of the Mayor to the matter and demands that he compel suppression of the evil.

The girls worked either as individuals or in small groups, perhaps in the house of a madam.  Such a house was often lavishly furnished and decorated, and generally conducted business with more select clientele.  At the other extreme, in the crib, a girl working on her own plied the same trade in conditions ranging from sparseness to squalor.  These cribs would be strung in a line along one street, thus giving the prostitution district the popular name “the line.”  It was also known as the red-light district after the red lights posted in the windows all along the line.

Myers Avenue, the line in Cripple Creek, Colorado, was lifted into national prominence after Julian Street, a famed writer of the day, took a horrified look at it and wrote an uncomplimentary article in Collier’s.  The town leaders were so incensed they bombarded the magazine’s editors with telegrams.  When these left the editors unmoved, the council sent out the following news bulletin: “Tonight the city council of Cripple Creek, Colorado, approved unanimously changing the name of Myers Avenue to Julian Street.”  And Julian Street it is still called.

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With the end of the Mexican War in 1846 and the discovery of gold at Sutter’s Mill in California two years later, the West was opened with a rush. Thousands upon thousands of Easterners – adventurous, avaricious, or discontented – left their homes to try their skill and luck in the wild West. It was long before the names of such boomtowns as San Francisco, Deadwood, Tombstone, Leadville, and Denver became bywords back East.

Soon after the birth of any new boomtown, it was ready to swing into its first phase of growth. Hustle was the name of the game. Hustle to get the choice town lots. Hustle to get the first shipment of new merchandise. Hustle to build the first saloon, the first gambling palace, the first brothel. There were great profits to be made, but the gamble was equally great. The old warning of “haste makes waste” was never in the thoughts of the boomtown entrepreneurs. Their only object was to dig the gold and silver from the miners’ pockets before someone else did, to get a piece of the trail hands’ hard-earned cash before it was all spent.

In the rush, all types of people appeared. The first was the prospective saloonkeeper, who knew he was starting a sure thing. Not long after him came the girl of the “line,” the row of small houses on the outskirts of town where prostitutes plied their time-honored trade. A successful and ambitious chippy might aspire to become a fancy madam, operating a first-class parlor house.

Typically, the first saloon in a nascent boomtown was a tent in which a board was set across two barrels to form a bar. The saloonkeeper ladled out his whiskey in tin cups to the thirsty men. By the time the proprietor shifted his established to a sturdier structure, he might have procured a few girls to sell their services to the patrons of the bar. The saloonkeeper’s next step was the acquisition of a piano, and pianist, both brought into the boomtown at great trouble and expense.

At the time of the Mexican War, the keyboard virtuosos were playing “Clarin de Campana” or “The Trumpet of Battle.” Then when the California gold rush came along, the favorite was “Hang town Gals.” Through the 1880’s and 1890’s, saloon music was quieter and more romantic: “Little Annie Roonie,” “You’re the Flower of My Heart, Sweet Adeline,” “She’s More to be Pitied Than Censured,” “A Bird in a Gilded Cage.” At the turn of the century, after Scott Joplin wrote his “Maple Leaf Rag,” the popular songs the “Professor” played all had a ragtime jingle – except when both pianist and patrons were weepily drunk. At such times, usually in the wee hours of the morning, the man at the ivories would play, with many eloquent and fanciful hand gestures, the sentimental and slower-paced songs of Stephen Foster, or perhaps “Genevieve,” “After the Ball,” or “Only One Girl in the World for Me.”

When a preacher invaded the dim precincts of demon whiskey to bring “The Work” before it was too late, he was treated with courtesy, even when his host was assailed as “a fiend in human form.” The poker players threw in their cards and pocketed their chips and the bar was closed as the evangelist mounted the Keno platform. The proprietor and the bartenders stood with folded arms during the devotions, then joined heartily in song as the piano played “Jesus, Lover of My Soul.”

There was no architectural standard for the early Western saloon. The tent served for a year or so, until it could be replaced by a structure of log or clapboard, or adobe. In short, the saloon was fashioned from whatever was most readily available. Seldom did the exterior have visual appeal, and never did it need it. Visual appeal was to be found inside, at the foundation of the entire business – the bar

From about 1840 to 1880, bar-making was one of the country’s significant crafts, with many a wood smith reaching the pinnacle of his art in designing the fixtures for a saloon. Crude chairs and tables were good enough for gambling, but the bar – had to show a richness which would suggest quality to the men who were bending an elbow. As a saloon prospered and acquired tone and class, the decorations grew more elaborate. Not uncommon were such grand features as red plush curtains, thick rugs instead of sawdust, and fancy chandeliers which sprayed a mist of perfume on the sweaty dancers below.

In almost every saloon the major attraction was a nude and nubile girl painted life-size on a canvas which hung just above the eye level of the men at the bar. Many a proprietor would bet that in any given twenty-four-hour period no patron would enter his place without casting a glance at the nude. And no one has heard of a bartender who lost that bet. In the bigger saloons, one might see as many as a dozen examples of Saturday-night art.

Some emporiums would sell beer for a nickel a mug and whiskey for a dime a shot; others would charge as much as two bits for a glass of rotgut. Signs on the Cyrus Noble Saloon in West Texas proudly advertised, “Fire Water and Poor Cigars. Whiskey guaranteed under the National Pure Food Law.”

Fancy establishments prided themselves on stocking expensive imported beers. In 1880, Lowenbrau wholesaled out of Chicago at $15.25 for a case of fifty bottles, so the retail price of a bottle must have been upwards of sixty cents – more than it costs today! But it is hard to generalize about the retail price of booze in the Old West. The price depended on the brand, the year, and what the traffic would bear.

Many establishments advertised a “free lunch” to attract customers and, once attracted, keep them thirsting for more refreshment. The food was salted very liberally. Buffet tables filled with sliced bread, hot sausages, beef, pork, crackers, pretzels, and cheese were open to all who invested in a glass of beer.

The saloon was the hub of the Western town. Bar, restaurant, gambling house, town hall, hotel, brothel, and sometimes courtroom or church, the saloon was the first building constructed and the last business to go broke. In the early days of the frontier town, there was no lodge, club, or pool hall where the men might gather. So, when our rugged Western individualists felt the need for communal activity, they surged through the only doors available – the bat-wing doors of the saloon.

Since the leaders of the town hung around at the saloon, people went there to find them. If a miner was shot, his wife rushed to the saloon to get the Doc or the sheriff, or the mortician. If there was a nasty accident on the ranch, the injured man’s friends stuffed a dirty cloth in the wound, threw him across a horse and galloped into town and the saloon.

Death often visited the saloon. Take the case of Ezra Williams, who got himself badly shot in California. He was toted inside the local bar and stretched out on a table, under the hanging lamps, while Dr. Thomas D. Hodges removed the bullet.

Ezra groaned in pain.

“He’s mighty bad off,” said a gambler, “and I’ll bet he dies before sun-up.”

Doc Hodges, whose pride was deeply touched, angrily snapped back, “Fifty dollars says he don’t!”

“You’re on,” the gambler leered. “Anybody else want to bet?”

Within a few moments, over $14,000 was wagered on Ezra’s life or death. Dutch Kate, who later became a stagecoach robber, ambled in and bet a cool $10,000 Ezra would be on his feet before the sun shone again. For hours everybody crowded around to watch the man and the ticking clock. Finally, Ezra obliged Dutch Kate and checked out of the saloon only minutes before sun-up.

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With her voluptuous figure, high plumed hats and bejeweled gowns, Lillian Russell was the talk of the fashion world in the Gay Nineties. Onstage, she dared to wear purple tights and calf-high dresses that showed her naked ankles. Offstage, she was a meticulous dresser, adorned in diamonds and lace taffeta outfits. She was considered to be the ideal female of her generation, representing all that was glamorous.

To learn more about the trendsetters in the Old West read H

ow the West Was Worn: Bustles and Buckskins on the Wild Frontier.

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“The daughter of Dr. Hansen, of this city, appeared in the bloomer suit at a convention last week. It was scandalous.”

The Sacramento Bee, California, May 26, 1861

Amelia Jenks Bloomer was a newspaper editor, public speaker, and proponent of women’s rights and other social reform. She did not design the then-daring outfit that carried her name – a short dress that reaches below the knees with frilled Turkish-style trousers gathered in ruffles at the ankles. She did promote the costume, wore it herself, and watched it become a symbol of the fledgling women’s movement.

To learn more about the fashion trendsetters of the Old West read

How the West Was Worn.