Among the spectators attending the baseball game at Fort Meade in mid-June 1879 between the Hard Scrabbles and the Never Sweats was brothel owner and operator Mollie Johnson and three of her best employees. All wore burgundy or emerald-green, silk taffeta and velvet dresses, and their blond curls dangled haphazardly from beneath the fancy bonnets on their heads. Mollie and her trio happily passed a bottle of wine around to one another. With each drink, they became more jovial and uninhibited. They giggled, laughed, and tried to engage the intrigued soldiers around them in a loud conversation about the best way to hit the ball. Their unruly behavior drew disapproving looks from sober civilians within their sphere. The women disregarded the angry stares and whispers and continued their celebration. When the game ended, Mollie escorted her girls to a pair of Patton buggies, two-seater horse drawn carriages with canopies. The women clumsily climbed into the vehicles, laughing as they settled in for the ride. 

More wine was shared as the least intoxicated of the two women in each carriage took the horses’ reins and spurred the animals on their way. The courtesans shouted and waved at onlookers as they passed. The animals hurried along, unsure which path to take as both drivers were too giddy to lead with any confidence.

By the time the carriages reached the open prairie near Crook City between Sturgis and Deadwood, the women were beyond drunk and thoroughly bored with the ride. The road was wide enough for the vehicles to travel side by side, and the drivers of both carriages decided it would be fun to engage in a race. The horses sped down the road as the passengers squealed with delight. The scenery on either side became a blur to the inebriated women, and their judgement was further impaired. The vehicles collided, and Mollie and the others were flung from the carriages.

Three of the four women managed to get to their feet. They were dazed and confused, their arms and faces cut and bruised, clothes torn in places, and shoes and bonnets lost somewhere in the brush and rubble. Flora Bell, a popular singer in the Black Hills as well as a soiled dove, was lying unconscious near one of the carriages that was bent and missing a wheel. Mollie rushed to her side, and the others followed. The accident had quickly cleared their heads. 

A man passing by noticed the wreckage and spotted the women huddled around Flora. By the time he reached the distressed ladies, Flora had come to and was trying to sit up. The man helped load the injured woman in the carriage that was still drivable and hurried her off to a doctor in Deadwood. Mollie and the others were left behind. They would have to walk back to town.

The women were still on foot when the sunset and the night sky came into plain view. They were tired, hurting, and in tears when three well-known men from Deadwood riding broncos met them on the road. After Mollie explained to them what had happened, the trio was invited to take a seat behind the men in their saddles and ride home. 

It was past two in the morning when the women and their escorts arrived in Deadwood. Still shaken and disheveled, Mollie and her girls returned to the bordello after promising the men to repay their kindness the following evening.

Madam Mollie Johnson was born in Alabama in 1853. According to the 1880 census, her parents were from County Cork, Ireland, and she was a widow. She was twenty-five years old when she opened her house of ill repute in Deadwood on Sherman Street. Prior to deciding to operate a brothel she agreed to marry an actor named Lew Spencer. * He frequently played at the Bella Union Theater in town and was more than a fair singer and comedian. Not long after the two were wed, Spencer left for Denver without Mollie. While in Colorado, Lew married another woman whom he shot in a fit of jealous rage. The woman lived, and Spencer was arrested for the crime. After serving a jail sentence, he returned to the stage. 

Mollie 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 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.

Men hoping to keep their moral integrity intact went out of their ways to avoid walking past Mollie’s business for fear of being lured inside. A reporter for the Black Hills Daily Times wrote about his struggle to resist the temptations at Mollie’s house in August 1879. The man was taking a leisure stroll on a hot summer’s night when he found himself on the street leading to the madam’s place.

“At the dead of night when all nature is hushed asleep, this reporter is frequently regaled, while on his way home, by the gentle cadence of sweet songs which floats out upon the stillness of the gulch like the silvery horns of Elfland faintly blowing,” he wrote. “Vocal music, wherever heard or by whatever produced, is entrancing to this sinner. Hence the aforesaid sounds are sure to arrest his step at the corner and compel him to lend his ear to the mellifluent melody which steals out from Molly Johnson’s Harem. 

“But he does not draw any nearer, for he knows that where the sirens dwell you linger. That their songs are death. …To avoid destruction he travels on, disgusted with himself because his virtuous life possesses such a skeleton of fun, yet wonders that such a voluptuous harmony is tolerated by the divine muse of song to leave such a bad place.”

Mollie didn’t consider her business comparable to other bordellos. Hers was not a saloon with upstairs rooms or a hurdy-gurdy with makeshift cribs behind the building. Mollie’s house was high-class in her estimation, and she wasn’t shy about letting women who worked in those inferior locations know. She often rented a large, open carriage for herself and her employees to ride through town in and insult the “less handsome and prosperous” soiled doves.

Mollie cared deeply for the women at her house. She made sure they were healthy, properly clothed, and protected. In the fall of 1879, one of Mollie’s best girls, Josephine Willard, more commonly known as Jennie Phillips, died after being ill for more than a month. The madam was brokenhearted over the loss. On July 6, Jennie and the other sporting women in Mollie’s employ had taken a ride in the country and come across a wild cat that had been chained to a tree by the owner of a tollgate. ** Enchanted by the animal, Jennie scooped it up in her arms and stroked its neck. She then tried to kiss the animal, and it turned on her and bit her lip. She started feeling ill shortly after the incident.

“During her brief sickness she had every attention that money, and the hands of her erring sisters could extend,” a report in the September 26, 1879, edition of the Black Hills Daily Times noted about Jennie’s passing. “She was the only child of wealthy parents now residing in Chicago, where her father is a leading saddlery hardware merchant and lives in luxury. What induced her to leave such a home and live an abandoned life is one of the mysteries that can only be conjectured.”

Mollie was still mourning Jennie’s passing when a fire erupted in town. Her brothel was one of many buildings consumed by the flames that nearly destroyed Deadwood in September 1879. Firefighters encouraged Mollie to vacate her home before the blaze overtook the structure, but she refused to leave until Jennie’s body, lying in a coffin in the parlor, was safely removed. The coffin was quickly taken out of the building and transported to another location. Jennie was buried the next day at Mount Moriah Cemetery. 

Mollie paid $7,000 to build a new house on the ashes where her old one once stood. The “Queen of Blondes” was back in business by Christmas and hosting holiday parties in which she charged customers $2 to attend. Mollie prided herself on supporting the community. She routinely donated money to civic organizations, but particularly so during the holidays. She gave money to churches to buy presents for needy children, to the city founders for July 4th celebrations, meals, and clothing for the poor, and books for schools.

Mollie expected her girls to behave themselves in public; if they couldn’t, they should at least not get caught. One of the women working for the madam and traveling by train from Omaha to the Black Hills proved unable to fulfill either request. When the young prostitute boarded the train, she spoke with some of the passengers and told them she was enroute to meet her fiancé. During the trip, she befriended a man who showed more than a passing interest in her. Their flirtatious actions were deemed scandalous by their fellow travelers, and an article about the affair made the February 15, 1880, edition of the Weekly Pioneer Times.

“The passengers on No. 3 train from the East that passed through Cheyenne yesterday were both amused and incensed at the conduct of a young lady and a male passenger,” the report read. “The two got aboard the sleeper at Omaha and were located at either end of the car. They were total strangers until they met upon the train.

“The young lady told a female passenger early in the day that she was on her way to Deadwood to get married to a young man who had left the East two years ago and had since acquired wealth. 

“She was a very pretty and fascinating creature, and she soon ‘mashed’ the young man aforesaid, who started a flirtation. The result was that the two were soon together in her seat playing at cards. The passengers, knowing that they were strangers, kept an eye upon all their movements. The young man was over-agreeable. He bought his newly made friend all the knick-knacks vended by the trainman and was ‘just ever so kind.’ 

“They frequently indulged in very confidential whisperings and appeared delighted over the result. They billed and cooed and were seemingly as happy as a newly wedded couple, and to all appearances the young woman had entirely forgotten about her betrothed away up in Deadwood.

“To the astonishment of the passengers, the young lady had the porter prepare her bunk early in the evening. It was in the rear of the car, but the passengers were intent on keeping posted as to events. 

“The young man took his own seat in front, and sat quietly until the next station was reached, when he got out, going out at the front of the car. He was not seen to enter again upon the train starting and in fact was remarked as being very singular, for he was known to be a through passenger, having boasted of his possessions in Nevada.

“The more he didn’t show up the more curious his fellow-passengers became. One man finally went searching through the entire train but failed to see him. Finally, an elderly lady whispered something to her husband, the husband called a caucus of the male passengers, and the result was that a committee of one was appointed to call in the conductor and porter. Those two officials arrived and were informed of the suspicions of the party.

“The conductor knocked at the bunk of the aforesaid young lady, and, after a scene that will not be described here, a young man clad in red and white flannel bounced on the floor in his stocking feet and, wonderfully strange, it was the same young man who had been so closely attached to the young lady during the afternoon.

“The young man displayed a great amount of cheek, and coolly dressed himself, defying the taunts of the passengers and threatening to spill gore.*** He ordered his bunk let down and went to bed, muttering curses against those who had ‘got him into trouble.’ 

“In the morning, the expectant bride got off at Sidney, being destined for the Black Hills, and the young man went into the smoking car, where his exploit of the previous night was unknown.”

The February 17, 1880, edition of Deadwood’s newspaper, the Black Hills Daily Times, called the sleeping car exploit demoralizing. Although Mollie would have preferred her employee to have been a bit more discrete, the publicity did not have an adverse effect on her business. Indeed, patrons flocked to the Sidney stage office in Deadwood whenever news that Mollie had hired a bevy of new blond beauties to work for her. The women received enthusiastic greetings, and, like the Pied Piper, men followed the madam to her profitable bordello to spend the evening.

Occasionally, one of Mollie’s girls, with hopes of falling in love and leaving the business, got lucky. Annie Hizer, known to customers as Little Buttercup, met Dr. C. W. Meyer, a leading physician in the Black Hills, at Mollie’s place, and the couple knew instantly they couldn’t live without the other. Annie and Dr. Meyer were married on March 7, 1880, at the Cooley and Doherty Opera House. Among those who attended the ceremony were Deadwood’s city officials, military officers from nearby Fort Meade, family members from Virginia and New Jersey, and newspaper editors. Mollie and several of Annie’s coworkers served as the matron of honor and bride’s maids.

Unlike other brothel owners in the area, Mollie was never arrested or fined for operating a house of ill repute. That did not mean she wasn’t ever in court during her time in Deadwood. In the spring of 1880, Mollie sold a diamond ring and several bottles of wine to a Mrs. Hattie Harnett who worked at the local assay office. The details of the sale are lacking, but the court records indicate that Mollie never received payment for the goods. She sued Hattie for the money in early April. The trial was held in May, and the jury ruled in Mollie’s favor. Hattie, however, did not have the money to pay the plaintiff. The judge ordered Hattie to sell one of the parcels of land she owned in Deadwood to fulfill the obligation.

Mollie was also in court during that time filing a complaint against Charlie Stacy who was a friend of bordello competitor Al Swearingen. Stacy was arrested for drunk and disorderly conduct at Mollie’s house and placed under $150 bond. The case against him was dismissed because Mollie failed to get to court in time to testify against him. Four months after the incident with Stacy, Mollie swore out a complaint against a known thief named William Ward. Ward had assaulted one of Mollie’s girls, and she had him arrested. He was ordered to pay a $15 fine.

The South Deadwood Hose Company responded to a fire at Mollie’s place at seven o’clock in the evening in late November 1880. The fire started in a pile of wood stacked behind a stove in one of the sporting women’s rooms. Unlike the inferno that swept through Deadwood and destroyed Mollie’s house the year prior, this flare-up was quickly extinguished. According to an article in the November 20, 1880, edition of the Black Hills Weekly Times “a few pails full of water effectively squelched it, and it was lucky it did, as in a few moments more the house would have been deluged with water.” 

It was the second time the fire department had been called to Mollie’s house in a week. A chimney fire had brought the hose company to the scene a few days earlier. Mollie and her employees were then advised to be more careful. The firefighters warned them against building a big fire and then leaving the room without being sure that everything was safe. 

Mollie seldom had any issues with the women who worked for her. Anna Bennett was the rare exception. The soiled dove brought a charge of theft against the madam in January 1881. Anna claimed that Mollie and two other women employed at the house stole assorted items from her room, including two of her silk dresses. The matter was eventually settled in court with Mollie being made to reimburse Anna for the stolen items. 

By 1881, Mollie had expanded her empire and was operating a bordello in Leadville, Colorado, as well as the house in Deadwood. In the beginning, it seemed the brothel would be as successful and void of problems with the law as her house in the Black Hills, but trouble arose weeks after opening her doors. 

“Early on the morning of the second, the house of ill repute presided over by Mollie Johnson, on State Street, was the scene of a stabbing affray, which may yet result in a cruel and cold-blooded murder,” the February 10, 1881, edition of the Black Hills Daily Times reported. “It seems that about midnight a man named Aherne entered the place and treated the women to beer. While talking with another man, a stranger came in and after drinking with the party was requested to ‘set them up’ himself. He declined to do this and at the same time began to heap abuse upon those present.

“Aherne, to whom he applied the epithet, son of a ______, jumped up to eject him from the house, the ruffian suddenly drew a knife and stabbed him twice, once in the breast and once behind the back. The would-be murderer upon this fled, and the victim sank to the floor unconscious. Aid was at once summoned, and the wounded man’s injuries dressed. He was removed to the hospital today, and his death and recovery are in equal balance. There is no clue to the assassin, and from all appearances he seems to be a stranger.”

To detract from the tragedy in Colorado, Mollie hosted a series of elaborate balls. Only the most respected clients were invited to attend. The well-mannered guests were treated to several shadow dance numbers by Mollie’s “dazzling galaxy of beauties.” The notion that respectable men who did business at Mollie’s place would function as appropriately during regular visits to the house as they did during the fancy parties was inaccurate. Bank manager Coney Hoffman and lumber yard owner James E. Witherspoon had too much to drink at the ball and decided to cause trouble. They went into the street and began throwing rocks at the bordello, breaking several windows. Mollie had the men arrested and banned from coming near her property again. 

Mollie’s ability to manage the women who worked for her and keep them in line prompted the mothers of two unruly teens to reach out to her for help. An article in the December 16, 1881, edition of the Black Hills Daily Times described the circumstances surrounding the desperate mother’s appeal to the tough madam. The girls, referred to as Miss Pettijohn and Miss Woodall, had been arrested in Central City for attempting to solicit money from men in exchange for sexual favors. After the teenagers were released on bail, their mothers escorted them to Mollie’s house where the pair were to reside for a time. 

“In justice to Madam Mollie, we must say that she would never be a party to the ruin of a young girl,” the Black Hills Daily Times article noted. “On the contrary, it is recorded to her credit she has assisted foolish girls by money and advice to lead a pure and virtuous life, but these young dames were all beyond aid. They were bad eggs, so bad that nothing could spoil them, and she accepted them as boarders. We are not so certain, but this change is a benefit all around. They are now publicly known for what they are, therefore, they cannot contaminate other girls. 

“At Madam Mollie’s house they will have to preserve external decency in speech and action. We cannot congratulate Miss Pettijohn or Miss Woodall on their new departure, but we hope now that they are in a house, they will forget the brutal indecency they learned and practiced on the streets.”

Mollie Johnson came and went from Deadwood often in 1882. The last mention of the madam appeared in the local newspapers in January 1883, announcing her departure from the area. Whether she moved on to open brothels in other boomtowns is unknown.

*Some historical records note his name was Len and not Lew.

**Tollgate houses were erected at suitable intervals to collect the tolls from the wagon drivers.

***To become violent.