wild west women

Dancer Loie Fuller stepped onto the Olympic Theater stage in Chicago and slowly walked toward Buffalo Bill Cody.  He was an imposing figure dressed in buckskin. His personality so filled the auditorium that the nineteen-year-old Loie was somewhat intimidated to approach him.  Cody turned his handsome face to her, flashed a pleasant smile, and introduced...

Water sloshed out of buckets that were being passed quickly between the people standing in front of a house fire in the tiny town of North Platte, Nebraska.  The water was frantically tossed onto the flames rising from Buffalo Bill Cody’s home. It was the winter of 1891. With the help of friends and neighbors,...

Two of the most ferocious dance-hall girls in the Yukon in the 1880s were called the Oregon Mare and the Grizzly Bear.  Neither could be described as pretty; the Grizzly’s appearance was really fearsome because she had had one eye gouged out in a fight.  The continued presence of these two in the dance hall...

Deadwood’s first dance hall opened May 1, 1876, with only the owner’s wife and daughter to entertain the customers; six women of more questionable virtue were soon added to the staff. Within a month, two more dance halls opened their doors. These were quickly joined by the variety theaters where a customer might be sensuously...