WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.680 Welcome to today's deep dive. We are really glad 00:00:02.680 --> 00:00:04.599 you're here with us to explore this one. Yeah, 00:00:04.639 --> 00:00:07.200 we have a massive stack of notes today. We really 00:00:07.200 --> 00:00:10.759 do. We're drawing from a really comprehensive 00:00:10.759 --> 00:00:14.019 Wikipedia article today, plus various historical 00:00:14.019 --> 00:00:16.339 records. Right. And it centers on a story that 00:00:16.339 --> 00:00:18.800 completely challenges the conventional narrative 00:00:18.800 --> 00:00:22.019 of the American Wild West. Oh, absolutely. The 00:00:22.019 --> 00:00:24.539 mission for today's deep dive is to look way 00:00:24.539 --> 00:00:27.280 beyond those Hollywood myths. You know, the dusty 00:00:27.280 --> 00:00:30.160 cowboys and the cinematic shootouts. Exactly. 00:00:30.320 --> 00:00:32.359 Yeah. Because what we're actually examining today 00:00:32.359 --> 00:00:36.240 is a master class in survival, reinvention, and 00:00:36.240 --> 00:00:38.420 personal branding. We are diving in. to the life 00:00:38.420 --> 00:00:41.240 of Alice Ivers. Though history remembers her 00:00:41.240 --> 00:00:43.500 by a much more intimidating name. Poker Alice. 00:00:43.939 --> 00:00:46.060 It's just a remarkable narrative to dissect. 00:00:46.399 --> 00:00:48.200 It really is. For you listening, whether you're 00:00:48.200 --> 00:00:51.000 interested in how to navigate a heavily male 00:00:51.000 --> 00:00:53.579 -dominated field or, you know, how to read a 00:00:53.579 --> 00:00:55.799 room. Or even how to turn a severe disadvantage 00:00:55.799 --> 00:00:59.240 into a regional empire. Spot on. Alice's life 00:00:59.240 --> 00:01:01.500 serves as a phenomenal case study for all of 00:01:01.500 --> 00:01:04.140 that. She really weaponized the expectations 00:01:04.140 --> 00:01:06.980 of her gender to survive. In one of the harshest 00:01:06.980 --> 00:01:09.420 environments imaginable. Okay, let's unpack this. 00:01:09.500 --> 00:01:11.719 Because to really understand Poker Alice, you 00:01:11.719 --> 00:01:14.019 have to look at where she started. Which is pretty 00:01:14.019 --> 00:01:16.920 surprising. Right. It's about as far from a dusty 00:01:16.920 --> 00:01:19.700 frontier saloon as you can possibly get. She 00:01:19.700 --> 00:01:22.819 was born in Devonshire, England. In 1851. Right. 00:01:22.859 --> 00:01:25.680 To Irish immigrant parents. And then when she 00:01:25.680 --> 00:01:28.519 was 12 years old... Her family crossed the Atlantic 00:01:28.519 --> 00:01:30.879 and moved to Virginia. And as a young woman, 00:01:30.939 --> 00:01:33.780 she was sent to an elite boarding school in Virginia. 00:01:33.980 --> 00:01:37.340 For the express purpose of becoming a quote -unquote 00:01:37.340 --> 00:01:40.420 refined lady. Which is just a striking contrast 00:01:40.420 --> 00:01:43.739 to where she ends up. It's night and day. Because 00:01:43.739 --> 00:01:46.659 in her late teens, her family uproots again. 00:01:46.879 --> 00:01:48.840 And this time they moved to Leadville, Colorado. 00:01:49.299 --> 00:01:51.280 Yeah. And to put that into perspective for you, 00:01:51.400 --> 00:01:55.159 the silver boom towns of the late 1800s were 00:01:55.159 --> 00:01:58.109 total chaos. Leadville was a high altitude mining 00:01:58.109 --> 00:02:00.689 camp that practically exploded overnight. It 00:02:00.689 --> 00:02:02.870 was absolutely not a place for refined boarding 00:02:02.870 --> 00:02:05.310 school etiquette. No, not at all. You had muddy 00:02:05.310 --> 00:02:09.080 streets. Thousands of transient men, saloons 00:02:09.080 --> 00:02:11.020 operating around the clock. Rampant disease, 00:02:11.180 --> 00:02:13.840 too. Yeah, and just a general atmosphere of lawlessness. 00:02:14.400 --> 00:02:17.680 It was rugged and overflowing with miners looking 00:02:17.680 --> 00:02:20.099 to strike it rich. And it is in that chaotic 00:02:20.099 --> 00:02:22.460 environment of Leadville that the first major 00:02:22.460 --> 00:02:25.280 pivot of her life happens. She meets a young 00:02:25.280 --> 00:02:27.719 mining engineer named Frank Duffield. And they 00:02:27.719 --> 00:02:30.300 get married. Frank is a respectable guy, but 00:02:30.300 --> 00:02:32.740 in his spare time, he likes to play amateur poker. 00:02:33.280 --> 00:02:35.580 So he introduces Alice to the game. He teaches 00:02:35.580 --> 00:02:38.319 her the mechanics, and at first, she just observes. 00:02:38.460 --> 00:02:40.939 She's just watching the tables. Right. But then, 00:02:41.080 --> 00:02:44.199 tragedy strikes. After only a few years of marriage, 00:02:44.460 --> 00:02:47.039 Frank is killed in an accident. He was resetting 00:02:47.039 --> 00:02:49.199 a dynamite charge in a Leadville mine. Which 00:02:49.199 --> 00:02:52.139 is just awful. Suddenly, Alice is a young widow 00:02:52.139 --> 00:02:54.729 on the frontier with - absolutely no financial 00:02:54.729 --> 00:02:57.189 safety net. And this is where we see the concept 00:02:57.189 --> 00:03:00.030 of survival economics come into play. A woman 00:03:00.030 --> 00:03:02.590 in that era, in that specific frontier location. 00:03:02.710 --> 00:03:05.349 She had very few avenues for independence. The 00:03:05.349 --> 00:03:07.990 sources note she tried traditional women's jobs 00:03:07.990 --> 00:03:11.080 first. Including teaching. Right, but she completely 00:03:11.080 --> 00:03:13.500 failed to make a living wage doing that. Because 00:03:13.500 --> 00:03:16.319 the frontier was built around male physical labor. 00:03:16.500 --> 00:03:19.039 And the social structure dictated that women 00:03:19.039 --> 00:03:21.879 were largely dependent on men for financial stability. 00:03:22.240 --> 00:03:24.780 Traditional domestic or educational roles paid 00:03:24.780 --> 00:03:27.800 pennies. She was in a dire financial position. 00:03:28.159 --> 00:03:30.699 So she looks at the one marketable skill her 00:03:30.699 --> 00:03:33.520 late husband left her with, and she pivots. She 00:03:33.520 --> 00:03:35.780 turns to playing poker and pharaoh to support 00:03:35.780 --> 00:03:38.879 herself. Wait, poker is one thing, but what exactly 00:03:38.879 --> 00:03:41.400 is... Pharaoh? That is a great question. Like, 00:03:41.419 --> 00:03:43.740 how does a boarding school graduate pick that 00:03:43.740 --> 00:03:46.800 up and use it to make a living? That is a crucial 00:03:46.800 --> 00:03:50.020 detail to her success. Pharaoh was actually the 00:03:50.020 --> 00:03:52.879 most popular banking game in the Old West. Really? 00:03:53.159 --> 00:03:55.400 Even more than poker? Even more so than poker 00:03:55.400 --> 00:03:57.680 in a lot of saloons, yeah. It involves players 00:03:57.680 --> 00:04:00.500 betting on the order in which cards will be drawn 00:04:00.500 --> 00:04:02.819 from a dealing box. Okay, so it's a probability 00:04:02.819 --> 00:04:06.180 game. Exactly. And the reason it suited Alice 00:04:06.180 --> 00:04:09.319 so perfectly is that Unlike modern casino games, 00:04:09.659 --> 00:04:12.460 Farrow is highly susceptible to card counting. 00:04:12.639 --> 00:04:15.500 And tracking probability. Right. As cards are 00:04:15.500 --> 00:04:18.480 dealt, a sharp player who can memorize the deck 00:04:18.480 --> 00:04:21.519 knows exactly what cards are left and how the 00:04:21.519 --> 00:04:24.139 odds shift. It requires a highly analytical, 00:04:24.259 --> 00:04:27.100 mathematical mind. And she clearly had that mind. 00:04:27.279 --> 00:04:29.220 Because she starts making a massive name for 00:04:29.220 --> 00:04:31.920 herself in places like Silver City, New Mexico. 00:04:32.139 --> 00:04:34.410 Winning huge amounts of cash. But the way she 00:04:34.410 --> 00:04:37.110 uses that cash is what really stands out to me. 00:04:37.209 --> 00:04:39.370 What's fascinating here is her overarching strategy. 00:04:39.610 --> 00:04:42.709 She didn't just hoard her winnings. No, she did 00:04:42.709 --> 00:04:44.649 something pretty wild with it. She would take 00:04:44.649 --> 00:04:47.649 these massive pots from places like Silver City, 00:04:47.810 --> 00:04:50.170 hop on a train, and travel all the way to New 00:04:50.170 --> 00:04:53.470 York City. Just to go shopping. Literally. To 00:04:53.470 --> 00:04:56.089 purchase the absolute latest, most expensive 00:04:56.089 --> 00:04:58.930 fashions. We are talking high society Victorian 00:04:58.930 --> 00:05:02.100 dresses. Hold on, though. Wearing high society 00:05:02.100 --> 00:05:04.899 Victorian dresses in a rough mining camp feels 00:05:04.899 --> 00:05:07.379 like it would make her a target, not a winner. 00:05:07.579 --> 00:05:09.220 You would think so, right? What was the actual 00:05:09.220 --> 00:05:11.899 strategy there? It was a highly calculated business 00:05:11.899 --> 00:05:14.779 investment. And honestly, a form of psychological 00:05:14.779 --> 00:05:17.420 warfare. By wearing these stunning, completely 00:05:17.420 --> 00:05:20.800 out of place dresses to the poker games, she 00:05:20.800 --> 00:05:23.740 completely disoriented her male opponents. Because 00:05:23.740 --> 00:05:26.199 men in these camps expected women to either be 00:05:26.199 --> 00:05:28.720 rough around the edges frontier workers. Or traditional 00:05:28.720 --> 00:05:31.660 domestic wives. Exactly. A woman dressed like 00:05:31.660 --> 00:05:34.100 she was attending a Manhattan gala sitting at 00:05:34.100 --> 00:05:36.800 a Faro table threw them entirely off balance. 00:05:36.980 --> 00:05:39.220 It made them underestimate her intellect while 00:05:39.220 --> 00:05:41.759 simultaneously distracting them from the game 00:05:41.759 --> 00:05:44.100 itself. She completely weaponized their gender 00:05:44.100 --> 00:05:46.139 expectations. It makes perfect sense when you 00:05:46.139 --> 00:05:48.439 frame it as a psychological tactic. She built 00:05:48.439 --> 00:05:51.379 this incredibly specific personal brand. And 00:05:51.379 --> 00:05:54.660 in her prime, she is working in a saloon in Creed, 00:05:54.779 --> 00:05:57.449 Colorado. Which was actually owned by Robert 00:05:57.449 --> 00:06:00.170 Ford. The man famous for killing Jesse James. 00:06:00.389 --> 00:06:03.110 So she is rubbing shoulders with actual legends 00:06:03.110 --> 00:06:05.790 of the West. And her persona is unforgettable 00:06:05.790 --> 00:06:07.689 at this point. She's wearing these high fashion 00:06:07.689 --> 00:06:10.410 dresses. She's constantly smoking cigars. And 00:06:10.410 --> 00:06:13.269 she always carries a .38 caliber revolver. It's 00:06:13.269 --> 00:06:16.029 the ultimate juxtaposition. But we have to remember 00:06:16.029 --> 00:06:20.370 the core of her success. The mathematics of gambling 00:06:20.370 --> 00:06:23.519 were entirely on her side. She was highly skilled 00:06:23.519 --> 00:06:25.480 at counting cards and calculating odds on the 00:06:25.480 --> 00:06:28.060 fly. In environments where men were often playing 00:06:28.060 --> 00:06:31.839 based on gut instinct, ego, or liquid courage. 00:06:32.040 --> 00:06:35.439 Mostly liquid courage, probably. But her ability 00:06:35.439 --> 00:06:38.160 to remain emotionally detached and mentally track 00:06:38.160 --> 00:06:41.040 the deck gave her a massive statistical advantage. 00:06:41.689 --> 00:06:44.110 And the financials of her career really reflect 00:06:44.110 --> 00:06:46.970 that advantage. Because of her reputation, she 00:06:46.970 --> 00:06:50.290 started drawing huge crowds. Men were constantly 00:06:50.290 --> 00:06:53.550 traveling just to challenge Poker Alice. On some 00:06:53.550 --> 00:06:56.930 nights, she was pulling in up to $6 ,000. In 00:06:56.930 --> 00:07:00.389 the late 1800s, that is a staggering sum of money. 00:07:00.569 --> 00:07:02.430 She later claimed her lifetime winnings were 00:07:02.430 --> 00:07:05.850 around $250 ,000. Which translates to over $3 00:07:05.850 --> 00:07:08.730 million in... today's money. She essentially 00:07:08.730 --> 00:07:11.410 operated as a one -woman corporation. And like 00:07:11.410 --> 00:07:13.689 any smart corporation, she knew how to manage 00:07:13.689 --> 00:07:15.949 her public relations perfectly. She was operating 00:07:15.949 --> 00:07:18.930 in saloons, which were viewed as dens of absolute 00:07:18.930 --> 00:07:21.810 sin by polite society. Yet she endeared herself 00:07:21.810 --> 00:07:24.029 to the saloon owners by maintaining a strict, 00:07:24.189 --> 00:07:26.730 almost contradictory set of respectable values. 00:07:27.050 --> 00:07:29.009 The most prominent example from the historical 00:07:29.009 --> 00:07:31.769 record is her strict refusal to play poker on 00:07:31.769 --> 00:07:34.490 Sundays. That is quite the contradiction. Right. 00:07:34.550 --> 00:07:38.230 She is gambling, smoking, cigars packing a gun 00:07:38.230 --> 00:07:41.769 but sunday is the lord's day so she refuses to 00:07:41.769 --> 00:07:45.029 deal it seems so contradictory but it was highly 00:07:45.029 --> 00:07:48.170 strategic it allowed the saloon owners to point 00:07:48.170 --> 00:07:50.930 to her and say hey look we run a respectable 00:07:50.930 --> 00:07:53.189 establishment poker alice won't even deal on 00:07:53.189 --> 00:07:55.689 a sunday it provided her with a layer of moral 00:07:55.689 --> 00:07:58.970 armor in a profession that was deeply stigmatized 00:07:58.970 --> 00:08:01.720 it was a performative boundary They kept her 00:08:01.720 --> 00:08:04.160 in the good graces of the community. Here's where 00:08:04.160 --> 00:08:06.759 it gets really interesting, though. Oh, her personal 00:08:06.759 --> 00:08:09.100 life. Yes, because as much as she was a calculating 00:08:09.100 --> 00:08:11.560 businesswoman, her personal life was just as 00:08:11.560 --> 00:08:14.120 pragmatic as her poker game. Let's look at where 00:08:14.120 --> 00:08:16.759 she ends up about a decade later. Around 1890 00:08:16.759 --> 00:08:19.560 in Deadwood, South Dakota. Alice is working as 00:08:19.560 --> 00:08:22.480 a dealer at Bedrock Tom's Saloon. And there is 00:08:22.480 --> 00:08:25.040 a man working there named Warren G. Tubbs. He's 00:08:25.040 --> 00:08:28.000 a painter and a dealer. One night, a drunken 00:08:28.000 --> 00:08:30.920 miner... pulls a knife, and tries to attack Warren. 00:08:31.079 --> 00:08:34.080 And Alice doesn't panic. Not at all. She pulls 00:08:34.080 --> 00:08:37.379 out her .38 revolver, levels it at the miner, 00:08:37.559 --> 00:08:41.080 and threatens him until he backs down. And that 00:08:41.080 --> 00:08:44.720 specific incident sparks a romance, and she and 00:08:44.720 --> 00:08:47.539 Warren get married. The historical records regarding 00:08:47.539 --> 00:08:49.320 this marriage are actually quite a headache for 00:08:49.320 --> 00:08:51.840 historians, though. They really are. The sources 00:08:51.840 --> 00:08:54.039 offer very conflicting accounts of their family 00:08:54.039 --> 00:08:56.779 structure. Some records claim Alice and Warren 00:08:56.779 --> 00:08:59.639 had seven children together. But other sources 00:08:59.639 --> 00:09:02.080 adamantly state they had no children together 00:09:02.080 --> 00:09:04.659 at all. And that Alice actually brought a son 00:09:04.659 --> 00:09:06.820 and a daughter into the marriage from a previous 00:09:06.820 --> 00:09:09.419 relationship. Making them Warren's stepchildren. 00:09:09.759 --> 00:09:12.659 There is actually a bizarre postscript to this 00:09:12.659 --> 00:09:15.340 family tree decades down the line. Right. The 00:09:15.340 --> 00:09:17.600 train track incident. A man named George, who 00:09:17.600 --> 00:09:19.820 took the Tubbs name and was identified as her 00:09:19.820 --> 00:09:22.419 son, is found lying on a set of train tracks 00:09:22.419 --> 00:09:25.820 in 1934. And he is saved at the last second by 00:09:25.820 --> 00:09:28.779 two women who pulled him to safety. He was 65 00:09:28.779 --> 00:09:30.860 years old at the time of this incident, which 00:09:30.860 --> 00:09:33.559 puts his birth around 1868. So the timeline of 00:09:33.559 --> 00:09:36.139 her dependence is definitely complex. It is. 00:09:36.509 --> 00:09:38.509 But bringing the focus back to Alice and Warren, 00:09:38.690 --> 00:09:41.929 their story takes a difficult turn. Warren was 00:09:41.929 --> 00:09:44.529 a painter by trade, and it's speculated that 00:09:44.529 --> 00:09:47.090 the chemicals and conditions of his work led 00:09:47.090 --> 00:09:49.750 him to contract tuberculosis. Alice spent years 00:09:49.750 --> 00:09:51.870 desperately trying to nurse him back to health. 00:09:51.970 --> 00:09:54.789 A few months before he dies, she moves him to 00:09:54.789 --> 00:09:57.230 a ranch on the Moreau River. Which is about 100 00:09:57.230 --> 00:10:00.149 miles from Sturgis, South Dakota. She was hoping 00:10:00.149 --> 00:10:02.330 the fresh air would help him recover. But he 00:10:02.330 --> 00:10:05.919 passes away on New Year's Eve, 1909. Now Alice 00:10:05.919 --> 00:10:08.100 wants to give the man she loves a proper funeral 00:10:08.100 --> 00:10:11.039 and burial. But it is the dead of winter in South 00:10:11.039 --> 00:10:13.879 Dakota. So she wraps his body in blankets, places 00:10:13.879 --> 00:10:16.759 him in their open lumber wagon, and hitches up 00:10:16.759 --> 00:10:19.639 a team of horses. And she drives that wagon herself 00:10:19.639 --> 00:10:22.220 for four days. Through snow -covered trails and 00:10:22.220 --> 00:10:25.200 freezing temperatures just to get him to Sturgis. 00:10:25.440 --> 00:10:27.720 A hundred -mile journey in an open lumber wagon 00:10:27.720 --> 00:10:30.620 during a South Dakota January is a brutal physical 00:10:30.620 --> 00:10:33.860 ordeal. It is a profound display of grit. And 00:10:33.860 --> 00:10:36.519 when she finally arrives in Sturgis, she doesn't 00:10:36.519 --> 00:10:38.419 even have the money to cover the funeral costs. 00:10:38.889 --> 00:10:41.629 So she travels to Rapid City and takes a job 00:10:41.629 --> 00:10:43.970 as a bartender at a place called Black Nell's 00:10:43.970 --> 00:10:46.629 Resort. Specifically to pay off those burial 00:10:46.629 --> 00:10:49.690 expenses. She eventually pays off the debt, but 00:10:49.690 --> 00:10:51.909 she doesn't stay a grieving widow forever. Her 00:10:51.909 --> 00:10:53.870 third marriage might be the ultimate example 00:10:53.870 --> 00:10:57.049 of her cold, hard pragmatism. She eventually 00:10:57.049 --> 00:11:00.200 meets a man named George Huggert. George? is 00:11:00.200 --> 00:11:02.340 a worker on a sheep homestead she is running. 00:11:02.500 --> 00:11:05.080 He is totally smitten with Alice and is constantly 00:11:05.080 --> 00:11:07.240 proposing to her. But she keeps turning him down. 00:11:07.419 --> 00:11:09.740 Until Alice falls behind on paying George his 00:11:09.740 --> 00:11:13.480 wages. Eventually, she owes him $1 ,008 in back 00:11:13.480 --> 00:11:16.480 pay. Alice calculates her options and realizes 00:11:16.480 --> 00:11:19.059 it would literally be cheaper to marry the man 00:11:19.059 --> 00:11:22.779 than to pay him the wages she owes. So she accepts 00:11:22.779 --> 00:11:25.129 his proposal. If we connect this to the bigger 00:11:25.129 --> 00:11:27.850 picture, it highlights how survival on the frontier 00:11:27.850 --> 00:11:30.769 forced people to view romance and marriage through 00:11:30.769 --> 00:11:33.370 a lens of strict financial utility. Love was 00:11:33.370 --> 00:11:36.149 a luxury. Economic stability was a necessity. 00:11:36.490 --> 00:11:38.870 Marrying your farmhand to cancel a debt sounds 00:11:38.870 --> 00:11:42.070 incredibly cold to modern ears. But for poker, 00:11:42.250 --> 00:11:45.210 Alice, who had already survived the death of 00:11:45.210 --> 00:11:46.950 two husbands and the collapse of her finances. 00:11:47.330 --> 00:11:49.769 It was just a practical ledger entry. George 00:11:49.769 --> 00:11:52.429 Huckard passed away a few years later in 1924. 00:11:53.000 --> 00:11:55.240 After paying off the funeral and running a sheep 00:11:55.240 --> 00:11:57.860 homestead, Alice realizes that dealing cards 00:11:57.860 --> 00:12:00.620 for other people or managing a small farm isn't 00:12:00.620 --> 00:12:02.919 enough to secure her long -term future. She needs 00:12:02.919 --> 00:12:05.580 to own the house. Which brings us to the final 00:12:05.580 --> 00:12:08.759 and most explosive chapter of her life. She purchases 00:12:08.759 --> 00:12:10.840 a building on the south side of Bear Butte Creek. 00:12:11.080 --> 00:12:13.720 Right between Sturgis and Fort Meade. This place 00:12:13.720 --> 00:12:16.519 became notoriously known as Poker Alice's Resort. 00:12:16.759 --> 00:12:18.440 And it wasn't just a place for cards anymore. 00:12:18.539 --> 00:12:21.159 She was running a brothel and selling bootleg 00:12:21.159 --> 00:12:24.120 liquor. Operating an illicit business right outside 00:12:24.120 --> 00:12:26.840 a military installation like Fort Meade changes 00:12:26.840 --> 00:12:29.919 the dynamic entirely. You have a constant influx 00:12:29.919 --> 00:12:31.840 of young soldiers looking for entertainment. 00:12:32.159 --> 00:12:34.580 Which guarantees revenue, but it also guarantees 00:12:34.580 --> 00:12:37.419 friction with military authorities and unruly 00:12:37.419 --> 00:12:40.919 patrons. And that tension peaked in July of 1913. 00:12:41.139 --> 00:12:44.029 The 1913 shootout. There had been brewing tension 00:12:44.029 --> 00:12:46.389 between Alice and the soldiers of Troop K who 00:12:46.389 --> 00:12:49.309 were stationed at the fort. On July 14th, around 00:12:49.309 --> 00:12:52.629 1030 at night, five soldiers decide they are 00:12:52.629 --> 00:12:55.149 going to go to Alice's resort and start what 00:12:55.149 --> 00:12:58.299 the records call a roughhouse. Alice refuses 00:12:58.299 --> 00:13:00.639 to let them in. So the soldiers escalate the 00:13:00.639 --> 00:13:02.919 situation. They start throwing stones through 00:13:02.919 --> 00:13:05.720 her windows. And crucially, they cut the telephone 00:13:05.720 --> 00:13:08.320 and electric wires. They are systematically laying 00:13:08.320 --> 00:13:10.820 siege to her property in the dark. Cutting the 00:13:10.820 --> 00:13:13.480 communication and power lines is a totally predatory 00:13:13.480 --> 00:13:16.039 move. But they vastly underestimated her resolve. 00:13:16.340 --> 00:13:19.299 Alice grabs her weapon and opens fire into the 00:13:19.299 --> 00:13:22.379 darkness, landing five shots. She hits one soldier, 00:13:22.559 --> 00:13:25.840 Private Fred Kutzel, in the head. killing him 00:13:25.840 --> 00:13:28.720 she shoots another 22 year old joseph c minor 00:13:28.720 --> 00:13:31.460 in the chest the bullet passed just three inches 00:13:31.460 --> 00:13:33.799 above his heart though he miraculously survived 00:13:33.799 --> 00:13:36.720 she also struck three other people in the chaos 00:13:36.720 --> 00:13:39.659 including a civilian the police and the sheriff 00:13:39.659 --> 00:13:42.460 rushed to the scene alice and six of her workers 00:13:42.460 --> 00:13:45.799 her quote unquote girls are arrested and thrown 00:13:45.799 --> 00:13:49.399 in the county jail how does someone in 1913 shoot 00:13:49.399 --> 00:13:52.179 and kill a federal soldier and not spend the 00:13:52.179 --> 00:13:54.299 rest of their life in prison The legal fallout 00:13:54.299 --> 00:13:59.779 is a perfect snapshot of frontier law. He looks 00:13:59.779 --> 00:14:02.840 at the cut wires, the broken glass, and he makes 00:14:02.840 --> 00:14:07.799 a definitive ruling. In that era and location, 00:14:08.200 --> 00:14:11.039 the law prioritized property rights and self 00:14:11.039 --> 00:14:15.429 -defense heavily. destroying private property 00:14:15.429 --> 00:14:17.750 and cutting off a citizen's ability to call for 00:14:17.750 --> 00:14:20.210 help. The frontier justice system sided with 00:14:20.210 --> 00:14:22.230 the property owner. He determines she was acting 00:14:22.230 --> 00:14:25.070 in self -defense, so she is clear of the shooting. 00:14:25.289 --> 00:14:27.470 However, the law still had to penalize her for 00:14:27.470 --> 00:14:29.610 the nature of her business. So she was officially 00:14:29.610 --> 00:14:32.190 charged and convicted of keeping a house of ill 00:14:32.190 --> 00:14:35.049 fame. And her six girls were convicted of frequenting 00:14:35.049 --> 00:14:38.190 it. Exactly. The local authorities tolerated 00:14:38.190 --> 00:14:41.210 her illicit businesses to an extent, but once 00:14:41.210 --> 00:14:43.539 bodies hit the floor, They had to assert some 00:14:43.539 --> 00:14:46.120 form of control. But getting locked up didn't 00:14:46.120 --> 00:14:48.899 slow her down much. Not at all. Her twilight 00:14:48.899 --> 00:14:51.340 years are a relentless string of run -ins with 00:14:51.340 --> 00:14:54.480 the law. In 1915, there is another shootout at 00:14:54.480 --> 00:14:57.259 her resort where two soldiers and a civilian 00:14:57.259 --> 00:14:59.559 get shot. The police just write that one off 00:14:59.559 --> 00:15:02.639 as a booze fight. In 1924, her place gets raided 00:15:02.639 --> 00:15:05.700 for bootlegging. In 1925, she gets raided again 00:15:05.700 --> 00:15:08.840 and convicted for operating a house of prostitution. 00:15:09.120 --> 00:15:11.960 She is well into her 70s at this point, still 00:15:11.960 --> 00:15:14.519 fighting the law. It eventually catches up to 00:15:14.519 --> 00:15:17.740 her, though. By 1928, her luck runs out. She 00:15:17.740 --> 00:15:20.580 is facing actual time in the state penitentiary 00:15:20.580 --> 00:15:22.799 for her bootlegging and prostitution convictions. 00:15:23.220 --> 00:15:25.840 Look, she's in very poor health, and prison time 00:15:25.840 --> 00:15:27.720 would likely be a death sentence. This is where 00:15:27.720 --> 00:15:30.200 we see the ultimate testament to the relationships 00:15:30.200 --> 00:15:33.279 she built over decades. The local community doesn't 00:15:33.279 --> 00:15:35.700 cast her out. Instead, hundreds of community 00:15:35.700 --> 00:15:38.220 members come together and sign a petition. Sending 00:15:38.220 --> 00:15:40.440 it to the governor of South Dakota, William J. 00:15:40.460 --> 00:15:43.820 Bulo, requesting clemency. And it works. Governor 00:15:43.820 --> 00:15:47.220 Bulo grants her a pardon on December 20th, 1928. 00:15:47.419 --> 00:15:50.299 So what does this all mean? How do we synthesize 00:15:50.299 --> 00:15:52.620 the legacy of a woman who was a refined boarding 00:15:52.620 --> 00:15:55.379 school graduate, a card -counting math expert, 00:15:55.519 --> 00:15:58.159 a widow who drove her husband's body through 00:15:58.159 --> 00:16:00.879 the frozen wilderness, and a brothel owner who 00:16:00.879 --> 00:16:03.460 shot soldiers in self -defense? Her end was as 00:16:03.460 --> 00:16:07.080 uncompromising as her life. After the pardon, 00:16:07.259 --> 00:16:10.820 she finally retired. On February 6, 1930, she 00:16:10.820 --> 00:16:13.240 had to undergo a gallbladder operation in Rapid 00:16:13.240 --> 00:16:16.120 City. Given her age, there was concern she wouldn't 00:16:16.120 --> 00:16:18.659 survive the procedure. For a few days, she rallied, 00:16:18.679 --> 00:16:21.379 but complications set in, and she passed away 00:16:21.379 --> 00:16:26.000 on February 27, 1930. She was buried at St. Aloysius 00:16:26.000 --> 00:16:28.820 Cemetery in Sturgis with a formal sermon given 00:16:28.820 --> 00:16:31.080 by Father Columban of the Catholic Church. But 00:16:31.080 --> 00:16:33.700 even in death, Poker Alice managed to dictate 00:16:33.700 --> 00:16:36.289 the terms. The reading of her will is a defining 00:16:36.289 --> 00:16:38.450 detail in her story. When it was opened, they 00:16:38.450 --> 00:16:40.750 discovered she had completely disinherited her 00:16:40.750 --> 00:16:42.909 relatives. Her stated reasoning was that they 00:16:42.909 --> 00:16:45.610 had ignored her during her declining years. So 00:16:45.610 --> 00:16:48.169 in one final act of agency, she left her entire 00:16:48.169 --> 00:16:50.889 estate to her friends instead. Her legacy has 00:16:50.889 --> 00:16:54.049 lived on in remarkably diverse ways. She really 00:16:54.049 --> 00:16:56.289 became a fixture in pop culture. She was played 00:16:56.289 --> 00:16:59.070 by Susan Sullivan in the TV film The New Maverick. 00:16:59.129 --> 00:17:02.230 And by Elizabeth Taylor in a film literally titled 00:17:02.230 --> 00:17:05.359 Poker Alice. She appears in a Lucky Luke comic 00:17:05.359 --> 00:17:09.240 album alongside Calamity Jane. In the 1990s, 00:17:09.240 --> 00:17:11.319 there was even an English indie rock band from 00:17:11.319 --> 00:17:14.279 Stratford -upon -Avon that named themselves Poker 00:17:14.279 --> 00:17:17.859 Alice. It is an enduring legacy because she defies 00:17:17.859 --> 00:17:20.240 easy categorization. And this raises an important 00:17:20.240 --> 00:17:22.279 question for you to think about as we wrap up. 00:17:22.640 --> 00:17:25.339 We discussed how Alice strictly refused to play 00:17:25.339 --> 00:17:27.680 poker on Sundays to maintain her respectable 00:17:27.680 --> 00:17:30.319 image for the saloon owners. But looking back 00:17:30.319 --> 00:17:33.119 at the totality of her life. The illegal resorts, 00:17:33.200 --> 00:17:35.960 the bootlegging, the deadly shootouts. One has 00:17:35.960 --> 00:17:38.720 to wonder, did maintaining those small, performative 00:17:38.720 --> 00:17:41.799 boundaries of refined society actually serve 00:17:41.799 --> 00:17:44.000 as the psychological armor that allowed her to 00:17:44.000 --> 00:17:46.779 cross so many other severe legal lines without 00:17:46.779 --> 00:17:49.619 losing her sense of self? Was refusing to deal 00:17:49.619 --> 00:17:51.740 cards on Sunday the anchor that kept her from 00:17:51.740 --> 00:18:05.680 completing? We hope this analysis provides you 00:18:05.680 --> 00:18:07.839 with a new perspective on the figures who shaped 00:18:07.839 --> 00:18:10.220 the frontier. And encourages you to keep exploring 00:18:10.220 --> 00:18:13.079 the complex histories all around you. Until next 00:18:13.079 --> 00:18:13.420 time.