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An Open Secret: The Story of Deadwood’s Most Notorious Bordellos
Historians believe the scandalous Eleanora Dumont was one of the first madams to arrive in Deadwood Gulch in 1876. Her time in the Black Hills was brief. She was in her late forties, and much of her life as a prostitute and gambler had already been lived by the time she traveled to Deadwood. “Madame Mustache,” as she was also known, stayed in town long enough to fleece a few residents at the faro tables and spend an evening or two with curious men who knew of her reputation. Three years after making her way to the Dakota Territories, Eleanora was living in a gold mining town in California and reminiscing about life in Deadwood.
A pair of miners squinted into the early morning sky as they rode from 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 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.
Misfortune and a broken heart led to the fifty-year-old Dumont’s downfall. At one time she had been the toast of the gold rush and one of the most desirable women in the West. A string of bad luck in love and cards drove her to take her own life.
Eleanora Dumont was born in New Orleans in 1829 and came to San Francisco in the early 1850s. She proudly proclaimed to all who asked that she “did not make the long journey for love of the frontier or to find the man of her dreams.” She wanted wealth. “The western heartthrob I’m after is not a man, but that glittery rock lying among the foothills of the Gold Country,” she confessed.
To learn more about the soiled doves of Deadwood read An Open Secret
