The Buffalo Gals

These two dance hall girls (ABOVE) look pretty uneasy. And you would be too. If you loved "Miss Kitty" or "Medicine Woman" on television... you won't love this column about the real women of the wilder, true-life West. Sure there were sweet Baptist ladies and pioneer mothers, but we know little about them... because few writers cared to write their stories. They would not attract many readers... Laura Ingalls Wilder was a real, "respectable" pioneer mother and farmer's wife, and you will find her here... and a few others. But most of the women who made it to hide towns were prostitutes and dance hall girls, and entertainers... and you will find more of them here, because they attracted more attention from a lusty public. *******

Like Kate Horony, the faithful, treacherous, "soiled" companion of Doc Holliday (ABOVE), Western women (the survivors) were strong, determined residents of the most dangerous settlements- featuring the most horrible living conditions our history ever knew, so they had to have fierce constitutions. But let's face it, most of them were already casualties of some kind, from Victorian society, and found some kind of refuge in the west. But some of them had been brought west and then dumped like unwanted cats. The only jobs available in most hide towns were absolutely out of bounds for most women of the time. But they were welcome opportunities in Hidetowns where the nearest civilzation was hundreds of miles away. Many young women found their way to El Paso, or the Texas Panhandle... or western Kansas... riding a dustdevil of bad choices fueled by stubborn pride- and a sense of adventure. In other words, TROUBLE. And they found what they came looking for.

The sprite above has all the look of a frontier saloon girl. Her fancy hair and jewels atop her off-the-shoulder dress suggest a post-Civil War saloon girl, or perhaps a dance hall girl. First lets try to divide these courageous frontier women by profession...

In a place like Hidetown, there were undoubtedly a few cooks, maybe a seamstress (ABOVE), and a few housekeepers. And there were several jobs at the local saloons... Some "saloons" were just bars, and were kept simple, and only employed a bartender, but some required a barmaid or two. The gals below well illustrate that niche. They did just what they sound like... Their uniform usually involved a large apron, and a straight dress with a small bustle or no bustle at all... they often had to get around behind the bar with a big old bartender... Their clothing was festive and colorful... creating an oasis of beauty for the dusty, haggard cowpoke or buffalo hunter.

The barmaids above would have probably been working in a place like San Antonio or Ft Worth Texas, or Abilene, Kansas, where money and materials might be available for such glorious costumes.

There were traveling entertainers, jugglers, skip-rope-dancers, singers or "serio-comics," such as Fanny Garretson (ABOVE) who traveled like a gypsy from boom-town to boom-town. *******

Dance hall girls, (ABOVE) often called "hurdy gurdy girls," were paid to dance with almost anybody, whether they had sufficiently bathed or not... and that could often be a real concern when dancing in those whites... Dance halls were often separate from the saloons, in an attempt to create a more wholesome atmosphere... but sometimes they were adjacent, and saloon girls might get in on the action. It was pretty easy money... but led to a lot of propositions and temptations... Of course there were the madams who ran brothels, and their girls... whose profession has all kinds of nicknames... we will not indulge in the infantile recital of them. Well, maybe a few. But our education from Hollywood depictions pretty much conflates all of them; saloon girls, barmaids, dance hall girls, and prostitutes into one stereotype... making them all, "ladies of the night," you know, hookers, "soiled doves," "sporting women," but we won't explore all of that... Because many of them were not- THAT.

Saloon girls were paid to peddle drinks and flirt with the customers. If they chose to sell their bodies, they were usually on their own, without company sponsorship... but there was often a room set aside somewhere for them and their extra-curricular clients. Saloon girls thought of themselves as a cut above most prostitutes... who were kept down the street in brothels like chickens in a chicken-coup. Saloon girls were free to cultivate their customers... choosing their clients more like sympathy dates with a pricetag. But they were also more vulnerable, to physical abuse or non-payment... thus the evolution of the saloon gambler/pimp who offered some degree of protection. This was an unsung niche in Western lore... but represented by the most prominant men in the West... Doc Holliday, Wyatt Earp or John Wesley Hardin, and lesser known characters like Frank Thurmond, who finally married Lottie Deno, his partner in the flesh trade. ********************************* ************************************************************************************** Men are easily entertained with beer and superficial hospitality. Saloon girls were supposed to smile alot, move around the baroom, and offer to fetch more beer, and they usually had a coin purse handy to make change. Often saloon girls like the ones above were just runaways, or poor farm girls who came to the nearest town to find work- just trying to survive. Many had very strict morals. Sometimes they came looking for a husband... sometimes they had one, a sorry one, who made them take a job in the saloon, (a scandal to their parents), to support his gambling habit. Sometimes they fell in love with a gambler and followed him from town to town. That was sort of how Kate Horony, a homeless orphan immigrant better known in the West as "Big Nose Kate," started her career after running away from a convent. The streets of America in those days were very mean, and soon she was a "working girl" and seeking protection from a strong male she could trust... a man who could keep her from being cheated or brutalized... and she found Doc Holliday a semi-decent companion... some would have called him her pimp, or "Pi" as they affectionately called it, and they would not have been far from right. He had a death wish and she a love wish, and together they made the textbook "impossible pair." **************************************************************************************** Below may be an extreeeemly rare image of the infamous Lottie Deno, madame and gambler and faro dealer extraordinaire, standing over two associates in Silver City, New Mexico. The man may be her business partner and future husband, a half-Cherokee, notorious gambler and Bowie knife-wielding killer named Frank Thurmond. The woman seated may be Big-Nosed Kate... if one of my theories about Kate Horony is correct... (she got that big nose late in life from a saloon or brothel brawl )... Anyway, she and Lottie seemed to travel in the same migration patterns... which always ended up wherever Doc Holliday was about to show up... and they sometimes had words about which of them "belonged" to him. Lottie finally put Kate's suspicions to rest... and both were operating in and around Silver City when Lottie finally hooked up with Thurmond for good. The wine toast in this old tintype sure looks like they are finally making a peace pact. But Kate's troubles were just beginning... because there were others more formidable who were real threats to her relationship with the vagabond dentist. ****************************** ******************************************************************************************

The transition from saloon girl to prostitute was often swift and irresistable, if the girl was ambitious or discontented, and especially if she liked the attentions of men. But many girls just smiled and pushed drinks, and took their dignity home at night. It was a choice, not a fate. ******* When girls like Kate Horony yielded to the temptation of easy money and dark celebrity, few of them had long, happy lives. Very few found much friendship, other than other "sporting women." Kate was almost insanely jealous of the Earps, especially Wyatt, and knew that Doc was willing to die for them, and he loved them more than her. Bitterness was usually the lasting mindset for Western prostitutes, ended by drug abuse and addiction to Laudenum. In the end, when Kate and Doc separated, she was cleverly embraced and manipulated by his enemies, and she testified against him, a star witness accusing him and the Earps of high crimes... Few people that mattered believed her- and she quietly returned to her profession in Globe, Arizona. ******* Doc waited a long time for death, and she is still waiting for love. *******

But a harlot rarely waits for- or expects love. The prostitution of her flesh proves that. It strips sex from its intended purpose as the apex of human intimacy... physical and emotional and spiritual, (the three aspects of love) and makes it a service for pay, and leaves no natural language of love for the participants... making it meaningless and temporary. So for the prostitute, there was no romantic ideal to wait for, no knight in shining armour... just pragmatic use of her body and basic instincts... for the one thing all women want: simple security. Even if it came at a terrible price.*******

Prostitutes dressed much like the rest of women when about town, but when they were at work, they dressed in... well, play clothes. Their work clothes were much like the play clothing of juveniles. No corsets, very little underwear, no belts, no hose, sometimes no shoes. Much like saloon girls, they found long hair and long dresses to be a nuisance, and too much to keep up with, and to try to keep presentable. Women who made their living with physical interaction with men needed convenience and practicality. In the 1870's, there was little difference in appearance between a saloon girl and a prostitute, and both wore plunging necklines in the more permissive environments... but as time progressed and they refined their roles, the saloon girls were more showy and "girly-girly"... with ribbons and bows and fun hats and loud jewelry... on dresses which got shorter and shorter. The prostitutes were actually less inclined to show off the merchandise around town... their bodies were the only attraction, and they did not need any more men pawing at them... they had plenty of that at work, where workloads demanded ease of disrobing, and scanty garments were expected. Kate Horony did finally marry, and enjoyed some degree of normalcy... she wrote her memoirs... and left one of the few authentic accounts of a western prostitute's life. There was no convincing excuse, no good reason for it, no victory, no saving grace. Mostly a tragic, misspent life... Just an enigmatic dust devil that touched down with enough flair to be noticed before being absorbed by the High Plains breeze.