Wild Women Of The West: Madam Dora DuFran

Judge Harold R. Hanley hammered the striking block with his gavel after announcing the verdict the jury had rendered against one of the Black Hills most well-known madams, Dora DuFran. It was 1928, and the Rapid City, South Dakota, courtroom was filled with curious onlookers eager to learn the specifics in the case against the brothel owner brought by a Hot Springs resident named Alice Olson. The lawyers for both women, along with the other official participants, had been careful not to make public the details that prompted the lawsuit. The jury knew all that was needed to decide the matter, but the gallery only heard the general statements made by counsel. Sometime prior to the hearing, Dora allegedly performed an unwanted, illegal procedure on Olson that left her incapable of having children. Olson sued Dora for $10,500. Dora hadn’t had any formal training in medicine but, in her line of work, had acquired the basic skills in treating cuts, infections, and midwifery. Dora helped unwed women deliver their babies and performed abortions as well. 

Dora, a sixty-year-old, stout, curvy woman, dressed in an off-white taffeta dress trimmed with fur and a matching hat adorned with massive feathers, exchanged a few words with her attorney after the judge informed her the jury found in Olson’s favor. Dora’s lawyer had argued that the operation she performed on the plaintiff had been necessary because she was suffering from a “morbid disease.” The jury believed Dora had acted irresponsibly and awarded Olson $3,000. Dora didn’t agree with the decision and felt certain her attorney would appeal the case.

By January 1932, the Olson-DuFran case was still being fought in the courts. The appeal had been denied, and Dora had been ordered to pay the predetermined amount. She had been slow in getting Olson the money she was due, and a motion had been filed to keep Dora from selling certain property until the judgement had been honored. It would take another two years before the situation would be resolved. Dora believed she did nothing wrong and that paying Olson anything would be an admission of guilt.

Dora DuFran was a stubborn and determined woman. Born Amy Helen Dorothea Bolshaw in England on November 16, 1868, she had immigrated to America with her parents John, and Isabella in 1870. The Bolshaws lived in Bloomfield, New Jersey, before moving to Lincoln, Nebraska. John was a butcher and Isabella a housewife who cared for Amy and her other children. Amy left home at the age of seventeen, and her travels took her to Rapid City. Like many young, unattached women in the rugged West, she found work entertaining cowboys and prospectors at a dance hall. Dora drifted from Rapid City to Deadwood where she met her husband, Black Hills pioneer Joseph DuFran. In addition to operating a freight hauling business, he was also a gambler. He and Dora were married in 1887. The ambitious couple combined their talents for business and entertaining and opened a string of brothels. The DuFrans had houses in Lead, Rapid City, Belle Fourche, and Deadwood. 

Unlike competitors such as Al Swearingen, Dora treated her employees kindly, made sure their work environment was safe and clean, and that they were well paid. A maid was hired to take care of their laundry and make their beds, a handyman was hired to maintain the house, and cooks were hired to provide the women with regular meals. One of the cooks employed to make breakfast, lunch, and dinner was Calamity Jane. The Deadwood celebrity worked at Dora’s house in 1903 and was paid $8 a week. 

For a time, the DuFrans’ bawdy house in Belle Fourche was the most profitable of their businesses. Cowboys on cattle drives frequented the place known as “Diddlin’ Dora’s,” spending money on liquor and for an evening with one of the soiled doves. Advertisements Dora created to promote the brothel informed patrons that it was the perfect destination for “dining, drinking, and dancing.” She went so far to claim the house was “a place where you can bring your mother.” Regular customers confessed they wouldn’t want their mothers to know they had visited the bordello, let alone take them along when they stopped by. 

The DuFrans’ good fortune with the Belle Fourche bordello ended abruptly in the spring of 1906 when a disgruntled employee set fire to the two-story home on April 6. According to the April 7, 1906, edition of the Daily Deadwood Pioneer Times, there were nearly a dozen men and women in the house at the time the fire was discovered. Dora, along with the prostitutes and their customers, were forced to make a hasty exit into the street in their night clothes. 

“The fire was discovered shortly after 3 o’clock in the morning by someone who turned in an alarm and notified the occupants of the house,” the newspaper article read. “It was found that a shed in back of the house where some coal oil is kept had been set afire, apparently with a match, and the flames soon spread to the dwelling.

“The fire department responded quickly and, after considerable hard work, managed to extinguish the flames. …Most of the interior of the house was destroyed. A man by the name of Redding was arrested in Belle Fourche the day after the incident and charged with setting the house on fire. Redding was formerly employed there and was discharged a few days ago. It is said that he declared he would get even with [the owner of] the house. He is also said to have been arrested once before on a charge of arson.”

Dora’s house of ill repute and its furnishings were covered by insurance; in time the DuFrans rebuilt the Belle Fourche business, and customers returned in droves. Although Dora’s treatment of the women who worked for her was decent and fair and her interaction with Black Hills residents was courteous and respectful, many law-abiding citizens found her profession contemptable. As such, she was subject to the same consequences for running a brothel as reprehensible characters such as Al Swearingen. Dora was arrested and fined twice in 1907 for “keeping a disorderly house.”

The brothel Dora operated in the red-light section of Rapid City called Coney Island was not only one of her most successful ventures, but also the one with the most complaints. On February 2, 1907, Dora was in court to answer a charge for running a house of prostitution in Rapid City and fined $20. Ten months later, the business was under scrutiny again. Members of the clergy, determined to rid the city of drunks and debauchery, waged war against Dora. They petitioned the court to have the den of iniquity closed. 

According to the December 31, 1907, edition of the Rapid City Journal, “keeping a house of prostitution is a serious offense under the laws of this state, and punishable with imprisonment.” This time Dora paid a $300 fine, and business continued as usual. She had another encounter with the law in early 1908 involving the sale of liquor without a license. Another hefty fine was imposed, but daily visits to brothels remained uninterrupted. When the reverends that spearheaded the attempt to stop the moral depravity realized the authorities would not shut the madam’s busy house down, they organized a series of revivals. Dora and the sporting girls at her house were invited to attend.

Dora’s life was forever changed on August 3, 1908, when her husband passed away at the hospital in Hot Springs after suffering for six weeks with kidney issues. The forty-seven-year-old man was laid to rest at Mount Moriah Cemetery in Deadwood. Dora dealt with her loss by focusing on her job, her enterprises, and the two children she and Joseph shared.

Business at the Coney Island brothel seldom slowed. Men visited Dora’s place at all hours of the day and night, during snowstorms or torrential downpours. Such was the case in 1909. Thunderstorms flooded streets, railroads, and mines. Bridges, like the one near Dora’s creek bottom resort, were washed out. The occupants were forced to remain with the soiled doves until the waters receded enough and they could return home. According to historian and author Robert Casey, “There were nearly fifty women [wives of the men trapped at Dora’s place] along the bank, although probably no more than half that number were personally interested in the proceedings. And all of them carried weapons of some sort or other, including wooden rolling pins which I had believed to be the special property of uninspired cartoonists. The greater number of the amazons carried umbrellas which they kept tightly rolled. Nobody gave a thought to what implements Dora’s men who came to dinner might present in defense. It was too obvious that they were going to return to the mainland just as they were, without one plea.”

Madam DuFran’s house of ill fame in Lead made the front page of the Black Hills Weekly Journal in late July 1913 when two of the women working for Dora battled over a customer. At midnight, Big Jess, an employee at the brothel, charged into the room of coworker Jessie Taylor and shot a man named Thomas Jones. The bullet was fired from a .32 caliber revolver and caught Jones on the underside of the left hand, cutting the fleshy part of the thumb and passing through the palm and exiting near the little finger.

Big Jess was arrested and taken to jail, and a local physician took care of Jones’ wound and sent him home. Jones was not the target Big Jess wanted to shoot; he just happened to be near the woman who was the target. Big Jess’ aim was poor, and Jones got the bullet intended for her rival. 

On rare occasions, some of the men who visited Dora’s houses were arrested for solicitation. On November 7, 1913, Dora and Bessie Wright, one of the girls who worked at the Lead brothel, were called to court to testify in the cast against Arthur Olsen. Dora had warned Olsen to keep away from her business, but he had refused. After breaking into Bessie’s room, police were called to remove the man from the premises.

When he was asked why he didn’t stay away from the resort Olsen said that he could not understand why he should be made an example of when there were others who stopped by just as often without being harassed. Both Dora and Bessie explained to the jury that Olsen was not always sober during his visits and that his behavior was unruly. Olsen disagreed. He told the jury that he wasn’t a lush and maintained a job. He noted that he “remained away from Dora’s house for three weeks after being warned, but that lately he had frequented the place as often as three times a week and was then taken into custody.” Olsen claimed that no one could swear he was seen under the influence of liquor and that his conduct had never been noisy or objectionable in any way. He asked for fair treatment and called a former employer to the stand who told the court that he had always secured the services of Olsen whenever he needed him, and that the young man was always willing to work and had never been an idler. 

The jury left the court at 5 o’clock to deliberate and came in two hours later with a verdict of guilty with recommendations for leniency. Olsen was sentenced to three months imprisonment. That sentence was suspended for good behavior.

Arthur Olsen wasn’t the only frequent patron at Dora’s resort in Lead who caused trouble. On December 23, 1913, Charles Lashley was arrested for assaulting one of the girls named Cleo Clark. Lashley was taken into custody and, after spending the night in jail, was made to pay a $10 fine for his actions.

Between 1914 and 1918, Dora took care of her son and daughter and managed her various houses without incident. That was due in part to the strict rule of sobriety to which she insisted her staff adhere. The prostitutes who worked for her were not allowed to drink, but patrons were welcome to partake. Dora sold beer for $1 a glass. The price was high, but her business never lacked for customers because of the cost. 

The Spanish influenza pandemic of 1918 struck the Black Hills hard. The need for volunteer nurses to assist doctors in caring for flu victims was great. Dora decided to close her brothels and dedicate herself to assisting those who contracted the disease. She offered her services to Rapid City doctor F. G. Gilbert and immediately started calling on patients too sick to leave their homes to visit the doctor. Dora received no pay for her services and often used her own money to purchase food, medicine, and bedding for the suffering. Dr. Gilbert was moved by Dora’s generosity and referred to her as a “natural nurse.”

When the epidemic subsided, Dora converted her Coney Island house into a makeshift hospital and catered to the hungry and destitute. She didn’t escape the ordeal without her own health struggles. The February 8, 1920, edition of the Rapid City Journal noted that "Mrs. DuFran has done such good work all the past year nursing the sick of every description that it is hoped she will have the best care and get along nicely.”

Dora recovered and returned to her life in Rapid City where her benevolence extended to providing food and clothing to the poor. Dora is mentioned several times in the Rapid City Journal as having contributed to the general fund at supermarkets so the poor could go and shop.

In 1932, Dora decided to author a book about her time with Calamity Jane. The two became well acquainted while Jane was working for Dora and the former madam wanted to share what she knew about the legendary woman. The book entitled Lowdown on Calamity Jane was self-published and released under Dora’s pseudonym, D. Dee. 

Dora attended the 1933 World’s Fair in Chicago and set up a table in the South Dakota booth where she sold copies of her book for fifty cents. Historians note that Dora was so disappointed over poor sales of the title that she burned the stock she had printed when she returned home.

Dora DuFran’s life ended on August 5, 1934. She died from heart trouble at her home in Rapid City. Local newspapers referred to her as an “early Black Hill’s character” and praised her many charitable deeds. Dora was laid to rest beside her husband at Mount Moriah Cemetery. She was sixty-five years old at the time of her death.