Leadville's Ladies of the Night

Journalism + Research

FREIGHT

Creative Director

Laura Evans rolled her own cigarettes and married young. It was the 1890s and she was in her late twenties when she showed up in Leadville. She made a splash when she rode a horse named Broken Tail Charlie through the middle of Leadville’s extravagant Ice Palace. It wasn’t long before she was known for her skill on horseback, and when there was a strike at Maid of Erin mine, officials asked her to deliver $27,000 dollars. She rode a horse past rioting miners, armed guards, with the money under her dress. Her efforts broke the strike. She said she enjoyed “crossing over” and passing herself off as a decent woman. She loved to dress up as nun for parties. She lived to be 91.

Spuddy was a woman of the night who worked at the same brothel as Laura Evans. When the Ringling Brothers’ circus came to town, the two girls had a few drinks and went down to the circus grounds. They had the idea to borrow the horse drawn chariots and race each other down Harrison Ave. They managed to talk the stable hands into letting them take the chariots for a spin, by trading booze in a bucket. They threw in five dollars. They were each allowed a chariot and Laura took a corner too fast and hit a telephone pole. Spuddy had a smooth ride.

In 1860, Red Stockings was an original Leadville working woman known for her fashionable crimson socks. She had bright eyes and wore red ribbons in her hair. Locals claim her smile was “bewitching.” Her refined nature reflected her status as the daughter of Boston merchant. She held such favor among the men in the California Gulch mining camp that they would cheer for her as she rode by on her horse. She collected not only admiration, but over $100,000 by the end of her stay. Red Stockings threw a lavish banquet before she left, telling the miners: “I’ve had enough good times.” She got married, moved to Nevada, and started a family with her fortune.

Mollie May was born in 1850, and made her living as a travelling prostitute performer. After a brawl with another prostitute that resulted in the woman biting off part of her ear, she left Deadwood for Colorado. In a cowboy bar, two brothers were fighting over her and she was shot. The bullet hit a steel rib in her corset. She survived. By 1878, she was in Leadville living in a house of girls on Fifth St. By 1880, she was a boss, employer to ten women and two men at her bordello called the Bou Ton. She had the only telephone in town, which made her quite popular. She got into gun fights with neighboring brothels. Mollie sold her house in 1881, which the city turned into a courthouse. Mollie May died April 11,1887 from neuralgia of the heart. Her funeral was one of the most lavish processions the town had ever seen. There was a $3,000 hearse followed by eight carriages and many loyal mourners. She left behind a large estate and several diamonds. She was known for her fierceness as well as generosity, donating to churches and hospitals.

Born in Colorado in 1872, what’s known of Grace Berkey has been found in a cookbook diary she kept. She would tuck slips of paper between the pages and make little notes next to the recipes. One artifact is a receipt for rent paid by a prostitute she employed. There was also a recipe for orange cookies circled. Perhaps most illuminating is the poem clipped out of a magazine describing the need to be noticed, titled “Just Tell Them That You Saw Me.”