Journal Notes

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Tales Behind the Tombstones:

The Deaths And Burials Of The Old West’s Most Nefarious Outlaws,

Notorious Women, And Celebrated Lawmen 

It wasn’t a bullet from an outlaw’s six-shooter or an enemy soldier in the Spanish-American War that claimed the life of one of the fiercest lawmen in the history of the Dakotas. Seth Bullock died of colon cancer. The accomplished businessman, rancher, politician, and lawman suffered with the disease for years and he died in September 1919 at the age of sixty-two. Born in Amhertberg, Ontario, Canada, in August 1876, six decades later he was remembered for his strength of character as well as the influence he had on the wild frontier.

According to the September 28, 1919, edition of the Kansas City Star, before Seth Bullock made his mark on the Black Hills of Dakota, he was a pioneer in Montana. He was the first sheriff in Helena, Montana, and a member of a famous vigilance committee that rid the region of a desperate band of horse thieves.

Upon hearing that gold had been discovered in the Black Hills, Seth and some of his friends decided to go to that area of the country in the summer of 1876. In March 1877, he became Lawrence County, Dakota’s first sheriff. The gold camp contained some of the most notorious, cutthroat criminals in the country. Many were intimidated by the lawman.

Seth dressed like a minister, had the stare of a mad cobra, and was silent as a confidential clerk working for Rockefeller. In the beginning, his ability to effectively do his job in Lawrence County was challenged by an outlaw who intensely disliked the lawman. He gave orders that Seth should leave the camp and never return. The man threatened to shoot Seth if he didn’t go. After being warned by friends, the sheriff borrowed a squirrel gun from an old hunter and proceeded down the street to the saloon where the desperado was waiting. When the man saw Seth unafraid and coming right for him, he backed down and fled the scene.

As a representative of law and order, the Dakota lawman tracked down a number of stage robbers, gamblers, and murderers, and, according to the October 1, 1919, edition of the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette, killed more than twenty-five lawbreakers who refused arrest.

In addition to his career in law enforcement (Seth also served as a United States marshal in Western Dakota Territory) he co-owned and operated a hardware store and warehouse in Deadwood with his business partner Sol Star. It was one of the most prosperous companies in the Black Hills.

Seth met Theodore Roosevelt in 1884. Roosevelt was a deputy sheriff in Medora, North Dakota, and had tracked a criminal to Seth’s jurisdiction. The two lawmen became fast friends. He became one of Roosevelt’s Rough Riders in the Spanish-American War and was named captain of one of the future president’s troops.

Seth was an elected representative to the Senate and introduced the resolution to set aside Yellowstone as a national park. He was the first forest supervisor of the Black Hills and the cofounder of the mining town Belle Fourche.

Seth was serving his third term as United States marshal for the District of South Dakota when he was diagnosed with cancer. Friends and family noted that in spite of his health he refused to be complacent. He continued on with his work regardless of the debilitating illness.

When President Roosevelt died in January 1919, Seth decided to erect a monument in his friend’s honor. He oversaw the building of a stone tower known as Mount Roosevelt on Sheep Mountain located five miles from Deadwood. The tower was completed in June 1919. Seth died on September 23, 1919, at his home surrounded by his loved ones. He was buried at Mount Moriah Cemetery in Deadwood. His grave faces Mount Roosevelt.

To learn more about Seth Bullock and other Western legends read

Tales Behind the Tombstones 

“Once again, Enss has unearthed hidden cinema secrets. In Daughters of Daring, she tells the remarkable story of women who, from the dawn of movies, risked their lives—mostly in secret. Finally, their names are shared and their incredible achievements are told. No one does it better.”

—Rob Word, producer and host, A Word on Westerns

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An Open Secret: The Story of Deadwood’s Most Notorious Brothels

DEADWOOD — For more than 30 years, Chris Enss has been writing about the women of the Old West. She’s written more than 50 books on the subject, earning nine Will Rogers Medallion Awards, two Elmer Kelton Book Awards, and the Laura Downing Journalism Award.

“Usually, when you think about women of the American West, they’re either Miss Kitty from Dodge City, or Laura Ingalls from Little House on the Prairie,” Enss told the Black Hills Pioneer during her last visit to Deadwood. “People don’t think women did much more than that. The truth is, women were just so incredibly well-rounded in a variety of fields.”

Enss plans to return to the Black Hills, beginning Wednesday. That day, she’ll visit the Days of ‘76 Museum for a reading and signing centered on “The Sharpshooter and the Showman.”

Published in March, that title follows Pawnee Bill and May Manning Lillie of Wild West Show fame — exploring their remarkable, true love story.

Thursday, Enss will visit the Adams Museum for a book signing and talk about the cowgirls of the American West.

On Sept. 26 and 27, Enss will launch her newest book, “Meet the Kellys: The True Story of Machine Gun Kelly and His Holl Kathryn Thorn” in Deadwood at the Brothel Museum.

The author plans to host half-hour presentations on the Jazz Age mob scene. She’ll also be on hand to sign copies of her newest book.

Released in May, “Meet the Kellys” explores the life and relationship of George “Machine Gun” Kelly, a bootlegger turned notorious gangster, and Kathryn Thorne, a “mobbed-up Lady Macbeth” who pushed her husband to commit greater crimes.

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An Open Secret: The Story of Deadwood’s Most Notorious Bordellos

Enter now to win a copy of

An Open Secret: The Story of Deadwood’s Most Notorious Bordellos

Among the most notable Deadwood soiled doves in 1876 and 1877 was Jenny Hines. Known by many as Popcorn Jenny, she was apprehended several times for operating a bawdy house. An incident that occurred on February 21, 1877, marked the beginning of the end of Jenny in Deadwood. Police raided her business after a complaint was made by neighbors about the numerous men coming and going from the location at all hours of the day and night.

When the police arrived on the scene, Jenny reluctantly allowed them to enter. Initially they found no one in the home apart from the sporting gal herself. She assured the officers that nothing unseemly ever transpired in her home and that the idea she was exchanging sex for money was offensive. A further inspection of the premises resulted in a unique discovery made in her kitchen. The room was void of the traditional items one would expect to find.

There was no table and chairs, etc. Instead, on the floor was a mattress and on the mattress a man by the name of Joe Hodges. He was under a blanket, curled up in a fetal position hoping no one could see him. He didn’t stir until the police poked him with a cane. Both Joe and Jenny were arrested and taken to jail.

Joe Hodges was brought before the judge not long after the magistrate had dealt with Popcorn Jenny and encouraged her to leave town. Joe was forced to undergo a series of embarrassing questions about why he was doing business with a known prostitute. The only explanation he offered was that he was a “widower and, in obedience to the scriptural injunction, he was seeking a congenial companion.” He claimed when he saw Jenny, he was so charmed by her, he allowed her to lead him astray. He didn’t understand why the city would bother with two lonely people helping one another.

The judge admonished Joe and fined him $10. Jenny was never heard from again in Deadwood.

To learn more about the soiled doves who worked in the various brothels in Deadwood and the number of times they were arrested read

An Open Secret: The Story of Deadwood’s Most Notorious Bordellos.

Join me at the Brothel Deadwood Museum on September 26 and 27 from 11 A.M. to 6 P.M. for a tour of the brothel and stories of the many raids on the houses of ill repute in the Black Hills.

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An Open Secret: The Story of Deadwood’s Most Notorious Bordellos

The National Prohibition Act was passed by Congress on January 16, 1919, and officially went into effect on January 17, 1920. By early 1921, government statisticians reported that prohibition had had a positive impact on the country. It showed that labor was more constant and that absenteeism at jobs had decreased. The same government report showed that prostitution had diminished as a result of the National Prohibition Act. That might have been the case in some cities across the country, but in Deadwood, South Dakota, prostitution continued to be big business.

Listed among bordello owners who competed for business in Deadwood in the 1920s and 1930s was a woman of German descent named Pauline Longland. Born Pauline Wirz on May 22, 1891, in La Salle, Illinois, she came to South Dakota in 1910 and married Burr Longland in 1914. Her bordellos were located at 616 and 618 Main Street. When she was arrested for running a disorderly house in August 1920 and paid a sixty dollar fine for the crime, the court warned her against further offenses. Pauline’s line of work was so lucrative she wasn’t inclined to leave the profession for any reason.

On May 16, 1921, authorities raided her business, along with the businesses of several other bordello owners. She was taken into custody and charged with “keeping a house of ill fame.” Between 1922 and 1930, she was arrested four more times for the same violation and three times for possessing and selling alcohol. In 1930, Pauline was sentenced to ninety days in jail on various liquor offenses and ninety days for maintaining a public nuisance.

Pauline passed away on February 22, 1931, after suffering several months with a serious illness. “Her services, conducted by Rev. Alban Reed of St. Ambrose Catholic Church, were attended by a concourse of friends and relatives, and the casket was buried beneath a profusion of flowers in loving remembrance of the many friends of the deceased,” the February 26, 1931, edition of the Weekly Pioneer Times read.

To learn more about the busts at the Deadwood brothels read

An Open Secret: The Story of Deadwood’s Most Notorious Bordellos

Join me at the Brothel Deadwood Museum on September 26 & 27,  2025, for a lively talk on the police raids of the bordellos and the various madams who were arrested as a result.

Enter now to win a copy of

An Open Secret: The Story of Deadwood’s Most Notorious Bordellos

Rosa May sat beside the bed of a dying miner and wiped the sweat off his feverish brow. She looked around his rustic, one-room cabin, past the sparse furnishings, and fixed her eyes on a tattered photograph of an elderly man and woman. “Those are my folks,” the man weakly told her. “They’re in Marshall County, Illinois. Where are your folks?”

The question stunned Rosa. No one ever asked about such things. No one ever asked her much at all. Conversation wasn’t what men were looking for when they did business with her. Rosa glanced out the window at a couple of respectable, well-dressed women. They watched her through the clouded glass, pointed, and whispered. She knew what they were saying without hearing it.
Rosa was just one of a handful of “sporting women” living in Bodie, California, in 1900 and she knew what people thought of her. It used to bother her years ago, but not now. It was an occupational hazard she’d learned to live with.

“Don’t you have people anywhere?” the miner asked. Rosa dabbed the man’s head with a cloth and smiled. “I don’t know anymore,” she answered. “If I did have, they’d be back in Pennsylvania.”
Rosa’s parents were Irish – hard, strict people. Rosa had dreamed of the day she would be out of their puritanical household. She had left home in 1871, at the age of sixteen and soon found there weren’t many opportunities for a poor, petite, uneducated girl with brown eyes and dark, curly hair. She ended up in New York, hungry, homeless, and eager to take any job offered. The job offered was prostitution and five years later she came west with other women of her trade, hoping to make a fortune off the gold and silver miners.

Prostitution was the single largest occupation for women in the West. Rosa hoped to secure a position at a posh brothel with crystal chandeliers, velvet curtains, and flowing champagne. The madams who ran such places were good to their girls. They paid them a regular salary, taught them about makeup, manners, and how to dress, and they only had to entertain a few men a night. If a high-class brothel wasn’t available, Rosa could take a job in a second-class house and work for a percentage of the profits, turning as many tricks as she could each night. If all failed, she could be a street walker or rent a “crib” at a boardinghouse. Cribs, tiny, windowless chambers, had oilcloths draped across the foot of the bed for customers in too big of a hurry to take off their boots.

Rosa May arrived in Virginia City, Nevada in 1875 and went to work for a madam known as Cad Thompson. Cad was a widow who ran several parlor houses in town, including a three-story, brick structure called the “Brick House.” Cad and Rosa became fast friends, confiding in one another and talking about meeting their Prince Charming. “Whores dream of falling in love, too,” Cad frequently told Rosa.

To learn about Rosa May read

An Open Secret: The Story of Deadwood’s Most Notorious Bordellos

Meet the Kellys is on the rise!

Amazon reports it’s #4 in Crime & Criminal Biographies.

#9 in United States Biographies.

#26 in United States History. 

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An Open Secret: The Story of Deadwood’s Most Notorious Brothels

The discovery of gold in the southern Black Hills in 1874 set off one of the great gold rushes in America. In 1876, miners moved into the northern Black Hills. That’s where they came across a gulch full of dead trees and a creek full of gold and Deadwood was born. Practically overnight, the tiny gold camp boomed into a town that played by its own rules and attracted outlaws, gamblers, and gunslingers along with the gold seekers.

Deadwood was comprised mostly of single men. In the beginning the ratio of men to women was as high as 8 to 1. The lack of affordable housing, the hostile environment, the high cost of travel, and the expense of living in Deadwood prevented many men from bringing their wives, girlfriends, and families to the growing town. Hordes of prostitutes and madams came to Deadwood to capitalize on the lack of women. By the mid-1880s, there were more than a hundred brothels in the mining community.

One of the most notorious cat houses in Deadwood was owned and operated by Al Swearengen. Swearengen was an entertainment entrepreneur who opened a house of ill-repute shortly after he arrived in town in the spring of 1876. Initially known as The Gem, the brothel was host to several well-known soiled doves of the Old West from Eleanora Dumont to Kitty LeRoy.

Among the many madams who ran other cat houses in and around Deadwood were Poker Alice Tubbs, Mert O’Hara, and Gertrude Bell. The names of some of the most popular brothels in Deadwood Gulch were the Shy-Ann Room, Fern’s Place, The Cozy Room, the Beige Door, and the Shasta Room. After more than a hundred years of continual operation, the brothels in Deadwood were forced to close in 1980.

The brothels in Deadwood were raided numerous times during their 103-year existence. The Shasta Room located at 610 ½ Main Street was raided by authorities nine times between 1936 and 1964. Some of the madams were charged with the illegal sale of liquor and some with disturbing the peace. On January 11, 1939, a customer named Lodell Jay was taken into custody and charged with assault and battery after beating Madam Reid and creating a disturbance at the brothel.

To learn more about busts at the brothels read An Open Secret: The Story of Deadwood’s Most Notorious Bordellos. Visit www.chrisenss.com for more information. An Open Secret is available everywhere books are sold, on Amazon.com, Barnes&Noble.com, and at the Brothel Deadwood in Deadwood.

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An Open Secret: The Story of Deadwood’s Most Notorious Bordellos

Alice Ivers studying a winning hand

Madam Alice Ivers

Deadwood was a rough and tumble gaming town not fit for a fine English lady. But that’s exactly where Ms. Alice Ivers found herself. Widowed and broke, this lady began playing poker to support herself. Nicknamed “Poker Alice,” she became a cigar-smoking, straight-faced, gambler who very rarely lost. She was so legendary that men came from all around just for the chance to beat her—but few of them did.

Reportedly, her favorite saying was “Praise the Lord and place your bets. I’ll take your money with no regrets.” She met and married a local Deadwood man and had seven children, but she never gave up the game of poker and used her winnings to help support the family. In her later years, Alice claimed she won over $250,000 at the gaming tables – but never cheated. Poker Alice died in 1930 and is buried in Sturgis, SD.

Madam Dora DuFran

Though most “sporting girls” who worked in  Deadwood remain nameless, others, such as Madame Dora DuFran, were more notable. An immediate success once she arrived in Deadwood, she continued to build her business until she soon had “branch” houses in Sturgis, Rapid City, and Belle Fourche.

Born in England, Dora eventually immigrated to  Nebraska with her parents. A good-looking girl in her youth, she arrived in Rapid City as Amy Helen Dorothy Bolshow and began working as a dancehall girl. However, by the time the gold rush was on in Deadwood, she had obviously “promoted” herself to a full-scale madam.

Madam Mollie Johnson

Born in Alabama in 1853. She was twenty-five years old when she opened her house of ill repute in Deadwood on Sherman Street. She was known as the “Queen of the Blondes.” All the women who worked for her had golden hair and pleasing figures. In addition to being prostitutes, they were also entertainers. Some were balladists, and some were dancers. Mollie was a shadow dancer. She performed wearing little or no clothing, but patrons could only see her shadow projected on a screen by a bright light. Advertisements to attend parties in which Mollie would appear were posted regularly in newspapers throughout the Black Hills, and people flocked to the bordello to see her.

Madam May Brown

Born Anna Piergue on December 2, 1859, in Saxony, Germany, she was a precocious child who enjoyed spending time with her five brothers and four sisters and possessed a talent for painting. She ended up in Deadwood in 1884 and was hired at a brothel. She changed her name to May Brown and by 1885 was running her own house.

In addition to operating a house of ill repute in Deadwood and Rapid City, May also funded train robberies. She was found guilty of her crimes in December 1888 and sentenced to fifteen years hard labor at the territorial penitentiary in Sioux Falls.

Madam Pam Holliday

The last madam in Deadwood. She opened a bordello called the Frontier Rooms, later renamed the Purple Door. Between five and seven girls, ranging in ages from twenty-one to forty, were regularly in her employ.

The state shut down the Purple Door in June 1980. She went to prison for tax evasion in 1982 and was released in 1986. She then moved to Minnesota to be near her daughter and grandchildren. She died of natural causes on July 25, 2003, at the Hospice Facility in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota. She was seventy-two years old when she passed away.

To learn more about the madams who worked in Deadwood read An Open Secret: The Story of Deadwood Most Notorious. 

Visit the Brothel Deadwood September 26 and 27 from 11 A.M. to 6 P.M. to hear a presentation about the history of soiled doves in the Black Hills.