By Anna Kathryn Lanier
First, I want to thank Tanya Hanson for switching days with me. My usual monthly post date, the 14th, snuck up on me this month and I was not prepared. I do appreciate your kindness!
Now, to talk about one of the more fascinating women in gambling history....
Carlotta “Lottie” Thompkins was born in Warsaw, Kentucky on
April 21, 1844 into a substantially wealthy tobacco family. Lottie and her younger sister were blessed
with every advantage possible. During
her education at an Episcopal convent, Lottie would also accompany her father
on business trips to Detroit, New Orleans and Europe. An avid gambler, her
father took Lottie with him to horse races and gambling dens. He also taught her everything he knew about
cards. By the time she was sixteen, Lottie was an expert card player in her own
right.
Lottie’s life, like that of most of America, changed
drastically with the outbreak of the Civil War.
Her father, a Southerner at heart, joined the Confederate army and was
killed in his very first battle. The
news devastated her mother, whose health began to fail. Lottie took over the role as head of
household and ran the farm. However, distant family members felt it
inappropriate for a woman to run a business and they persuaded her mother to
send Lottie to Detroit to live with family friends. Her mother sent her, also, in the hopes of
finding a suitable husband, but Lottie’s meager funds did not last long during
the height of the social season.
Lottie’s mother and sister were struggling financially as well since the
war was taking its toll on the farm. A lack of workers prevented crops from
being planted and harvested. Lottie decided to get a job.
Jeopardizing her social standing, she took up gambling. Her talent for winning, however, earned her
enough money to not only send home for her sister and mother’s care, but for
her own support in style. At this time,
she also met Johnny Golden, a gambler and Jew. Her mother disapproved of him
immensely for both reasons.
The couple gambled up and down the Mississippi, but Johnny
was not as lucky at cards as Lottie and the couple finally went their separate
ways. Lottie had just settled into a New
Orleans hotel, when she learned of her mother’s death. The care and education of her younger sister
became her prime concern. Lottie took up
riverboat gambling and earned enough money to send her sister to private
school. After graduation, Lottie and her
sister moved to San Antonio. (I’ve not be able to discover what happened to
Lottie’s sister after this move).
San Antonio was the perfect city for a gambler. The establishments were open twenty-four
hours a day and Lottie played poker at the Cosmopolitan Club. After seeing her play, the owner of the
University Club offered Lottie a job as a house gambler, someone who would use
saloon-provided money to gamble with. The professional card player would
receive a percentage of the winners.
The novelty of not just a woman, but a beautiful, dignified
woman dealing cards drew droves of men to the club who challenged Lottie to
five-card draw and her favorite game,
faro.
The owner, Frank Thurmond, had another reason for asking
Lottie to join his club. He was smitten with her. Lottie soon fell in love with Frank,
too. Johnny showed up in San Antonio and
stated that Lottie was his wife, a claim she denied. Frank, meanwhile, was in
an argument with a fellow gambler and a fight ensued. Frank drew his bowie knife and stabbed the
man. The dead man’s family put a bounty on Frank, forcing him to leave San
Antonio.
Lottie also left, bouncing around the west Texas towns of
Fort Concho, Jacksonboro, San Angelo, Dennison and Fort Worth. She was so good
at winning many accused her of cheating.
One saloon-keeper told a newspaper reporter, “The likelihood of a woman
being able to win enough pots to make a living playing cards is far fetched.
That could only happen if she were crooked.” If Lottie cheated however, she was
never caught.
It was a winning hand that earned her a new name. A drunken
cowboy yelled out to her “Honey, with winnings like that, you ought to call
yourself Lotta Denero.” She didn’t take his full advice, but she did change her
name to Lottie Deno.
Finally, Lottie ended up in Fort Griffith, a rowdy town full
mostly of rough cowboys and soiled doves. But Lottie thrived and had great
success as a gambler there. She set up a
regular game at the Bee Hive Saloon and was treated as royalty by the men who
frequented the bar. Mike Fogarty, the
bar tender, treated her especially well.
Mike, was in fact, Frank Thurmond.
Afraid that someone would make a connection between Mike and the man
Lottie used to be romantically involved with, the pair would sneak away to a
nearby town for romance.
Johnny followed Lottie to Fort Griffith, but he was killed
just days after finding her. Lottie paid
for his funeral and coffin, but she did not attend his funeral. Instead, she
stayed inside her home with the curtains drawn.
Johnny’s death was not the only violence Lottie witnessed
during her gambling career. Fights broke
out constantly. In one instant, two cowboys accused each other of cheating and
fists started to fly. The sheriff rushed
in to calm things, but both men drew on him and Sheriff Cruger ended up killing
them both. Everyone in the saloon had
scattered. Everyone that is except Lottie. She sat calmly at her table stacking
her chips. The sheriff commented that he
couldn’t believe Lottie had stayed at the grisly scene. “You’ve never been a desperate woman, Sheriff,”
she replied. She may not have feared for
her life, but she did fear being poor.
Lottie soon became a legend of the West. Artists painted pictures of the lady
gambler. Authors and songwriters wrote
about her. One such author was Dan Quin,
cowhand turned writer. He wrote a series
of Old West adventures, including one with a female gambler fitting Lottie’s
descriptions and named Faro Nell.
Lottie, however was not happy with the book, published in 1913. She said it was an “unfair representation” of
her, portraying her as an “unsophisticated lady without proper breeding.”
It was at the Bee Hive that Lottie often played cards with
Doc Holliday, of the OK Corral fame. It’s
also alleged that she got into an argument with Holliday’s girlfriend, Big Nose
Kate, because Kate thought Holliday was cheating on her with Lottie. “Why you low down slinkin’ slut!” Lottie
shouted. “If I should step in soft cow manure, I would not even clean my boot
on that bastard! I’ll show you a thing
or two.” Lottie is alleged to have
pulled a gun then, and Kate drew a weapon as well. Doc Holliday placed himself between the women
and stopped a shoot out then and there. Knowing of Lottie’s reputation for being
an elegant lady, it’s questionable if the conversation went as now retold,
since things tend to be embellished as they are repeated over time.
After five years in Fort Griffith, Lottie moved to Kingston,
New Mexico, where she met up with Frank Thurmond again. The two went into business together in 1878,
opening a small gambling room in the Victorio Hotel and a saloon in nearby
Silver City. The couple also acquired
several silver mines. They were soon
very wealthy and loaned out money to mining operations in exchange for a stake
of the claims.
It was there that Frank and Lottie finally married on
December 2, 1880. Lottie continued to deal cards and Frank managed the saloons,
restaurant and hotel they owned. The
couple also purchased a liquor distribution business in Deming, New Mexico,
property in the heart of town and a ranch at the foothills of the mountains.
If not for the brutal murder of Dan Baxter, Lottie may have
stayed in the gambling business for a while longer. Baxter and Frank got into a
fight and Baxter threw a billiard ball at Frank, who pulled out his bowie knife
and stabbed Baxter in the abdomen.
Baxter died and the authorities called the death self-defense. But it
was enough violence for Lottie and she decided to retire.
Frank and Lottie settled in Deming to live quiet, orderly
lives. He concentrated on the mines, cattle ranching and land. Lottie became
involved in civic organizations and helped build St. Luke’s Episcopal Church.
It’s said that the $40,000 for the original structure of the church was
financed with winnings in a poker game with Doc Holliday. Lottie made the altar cloths used by St. Luke’s. Lottie was a respected community leader,
forming a social club Golden Gossip Club. The women gathered to swap recipes,
play cards and sew quilts.
After 40 years together, Frank died in 1908 of cancer. Lottie
lived another twenty-nine years, dying at the age of eighty-nine on February 9,
1934. However, Lottie has lived long
past her death. The character of Laura
Denbo in the movie Gunfight at the OK
Corral and that of Miss Kitty in the television show Gunsmoke are based on Lottie Deno.
Works cited and for more reading:
THE LADY WAS A GAMBLER by Chris Enss; ISBN 978-0-7627-4371-1
Never let your memories be greater than your dreams. ~Doug Ivester
