WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.140 Welcome, everyone. Whether you are frantically 00:00:03.140 --> 00:00:06.080 prepping for a meeting, commuting or just, you 00:00:06.080 --> 00:00:08.199 know, intensely curious to learn something completely 00:00:08.199 --> 00:00:10.800 new today, you are in exactly the right place. 00:00:10.919 --> 00:00:12.939 You definitely are. Today, we're opening up a 00:00:12.939 --> 00:00:16.519 stack of historical records, biographies and 00:00:16.519 --> 00:00:19.140 localized frontier accounts centering on one 00:00:19.140 --> 00:00:21.339 of the most unbelievable figures of the American 00:00:21.339 --> 00:00:24.359 Wild West. A figure that really defies all the 00:00:24.359 --> 00:00:27.480 typical frontier stereotypes. Completely. I am 00:00:27.480 --> 00:00:30.800 talking about Alice Ivers. Duffield Tubbs Huckert. 00:00:30.920 --> 00:00:33.740 That is quite the full name. It is, but you and 00:00:33.740 --> 00:00:35.899 history probably know her by a much punchier 00:00:35.899 --> 00:00:39.340 name. Poker Alice. Right. Imagine an English 00:00:39.340 --> 00:00:42.320 born, highly educated boarding school girl who 00:00:42.320 --> 00:00:45.759 somehow transforms into a gun toting, cigar smoking 00:00:45.759 --> 00:00:48.759 poker legend. Dominating the saloons of the frontier. 00:00:48.880 --> 00:00:52.539 Exactly. It is an absolute must hear story based 00:00:52.539 --> 00:00:55.060 on a Wikipedia article chronicling her life. 00:00:55.179 --> 00:00:56.939 And it's going to challenge everything you think 00:00:56.939 --> 00:00:58.939 you know about survival in the Wild West. It 00:00:58.939 --> 00:01:02.109 really reframes the era. It does. OK, let's unpack 00:01:02.109 --> 00:01:05.290 this. Our mission for this deep dive is to explore 00:01:05.290 --> 00:01:08.030 the incredible and frankly, sometimes baffling 00:01:08.030 --> 00:01:10.790 transformation of Alice Ivers. We want to extract 00:01:10.790 --> 00:01:13.469 the broader lessons from her life, lessons about 00:01:13.469 --> 00:01:16.069 the psychology of high stakes environments, the 00:01:16.069 --> 00:01:19.150 sheer grit required to survive and how to navigate 00:01:19.150 --> 00:01:21.450 spaces that are fundamentally designed to keep 00:01:21.450 --> 00:01:24.400 you out. Setting the stage here. Requires us 00:01:24.400 --> 00:01:27.819 to look past the caricature of the frontier gambler. 00:01:27.840 --> 00:01:30.079 Right. When we dig into the historical sources, 00:01:30.200 --> 00:01:32.760 it becomes really clear that Alice's trajectory 00:01:32.760 --> 00:01:36.040 wasn't just a matter of luck or a penchant for 00:01:36.040 --> 00:01:39.019 adventure. No, not at all. It is a deeply fascinating 00:01:39.019 --> 00:01:42.640 case study in sociological maneuvering. Alice. 00:01:43.230 --> 00:01:45.909 She navigated and in many ways completely manipulated 00:01:45.909 --> 00:01:48.730 the intensely male -dominated, highly volatile 00:01:48.730 --> 00:01:51.609 spaces of the 19th century American West. She 00:01:51.609 --> 00:01:53.969 really did. She used every psychological and 00:01:53.969 --> 00:01:56.390 environmental tool at her disposal to maintain 00:01:56.390 --> 00:01:58.510 her independence in a world that offered zero 00:01:58.510 --> 00:02:01.170 safety nets for women on their own. To understand 00:02:01.170 --> 00:02:03.390 the sheer scale of that manipulation, we have 00:02:03.390 --> 00:02:06.489 to look at her origins, which honestly could 00:02:06.489 --> 00:02:09.169 not be further from the dusty floors of a frontier 00:02:09.169 --> 00:02:11.780 saloon. Right. They are night and day. Think 00:02:11.780 --> 00:02:14.240 about the mid -19th century in England. That 00:02:14.240 --> 00:02:17.080 is the world she was born into. Devonshire in 00:02:17.080 --> 00:02:22.099 1851. To Irish immigrant parents. Yeah. And when 00:02:22.099 --> 00:02:24.879 Alice was a young girl, about 12 years old, the 00:02:24.879 --> 00:02:27.800 family crossed the Atlantic and settled in Virginia. 00:02:28.349 --> 00:02:30.750 So she wasn't raised in a rough and tumble environment. 00:02:31.110 --> 00:02:33.509 Far from it. She was sent to an elite boarding 00:02:33.509 --> 00:02:36.490 school specifically to be educated as a refined 00:02:36.490 --> 00:02:38.990 lady. Which is such a contrast. It's massive. 00:02:39.050 --> 00:02:41.250 She was being prepped for drawing rooms in high 00:02:41.250 --> 00:02:44.250 society. And the environmental whiplash she experiences 00:02:44.250 --> 00:02:46.689 next is crucial to her development. Oh, definitely. 00:02:47.050 --> 00:02:49.370 In her late teens, her family uproots again. 00:02:49.909 --> 00:02:52.689 This time, they follow the silver rush out west 00:02:52.689 --> 00:02:55.110 to Leadville, Colorado. The culture shock must 00:02:55.110 --> 00:02:57.509 have been staggering. It had to be. She goes 00:02:57.509 --> 00:02:59.650 from a structured, genteel Virginia boarding 00:02:59.650 --> 00:03:03.349 school to a booming, chaotic, dirt -and -dynamite 00:03:03.349 --> 00:03:06.129 mining town. Leadville in those days was wild. 00:03:06.810 --> 00:03:09.689 Extreme transience, sudden wealth, sudden violence. 00:03:09.930 --> 00:03:12.650 Exactly. And it is in this crucible that she 00:03:12.650 --> 00:03:15.349 meets a young man named Frank Duffield. He was 00:03:15.349 --> 00:03:17.449 a mining engineer, right? Yes, a mining engineer. 00:03:17.650 --> 00:03:20.830 They marry, and in his spare time, Frank happens 00:03:20.830 --> 00:03:24.330 to be a poker player. Ah! So he teaches Alice 00:03:24.330 --> 00:03:26.680 the mechanics of the game. He probably thought 00:03:26.680 --> 00:03:29.379 he was just teaching his refined wife a fun parlor 00:03:29.379 --> 00:03:31.740 trick to pass the time. Most likely. But the 00:03:31.740 --> 00:03:35.620 narrative takes a sharp, brutal turn here. Just 00:03:35.620 --> 00:03:38.360 a few years into their marriage, Frank is resetting 00:03:38.360 --> 00:03:41.219 a dynamite charge in a Leadville mine. A really 00:03:41.219 --> 00:03:44.180 common but incredibly dangerous job. Very. And 00:03:44.180 --> 00:03:46.860 the charge detonates early. Oh, man. Yeah, he 00:03:46.860 --> 00:03:49.860 is killed instantly. Suddenly, Alice is a young 00:03:49.860 --> 00:03:52.560 widow in a notoriously rough mining camp. Utterly 00:03:52.560 --> 00:03:54.939 isolated. With no primary source of income and 00:03:54.939 --> 00:03:57.479 no family safety net nearby. What's fascinating 00:03:57.479 --> 00:04:00.219 here is the brutal reality of her financial desperation 00:04:00.219 --> 00:04:03.400 and how she responds to it. Right. The historical 00:04:03.400 --> 00:04:06.500 record shows she initially tried to survive through 00:04:06.500 --> 00:04:10.120 conventional, socially acceptable means. She 00:04:10.120 --> 00:04:12.340 attempted to find work as a school teacher. Which 00:04:12.340 --> 00:04:14.520 aligns perfectly with her boarding school background. 00:04:14.780 --> 00:04:17.680 It does. But the frontier didn't need refined 00:04:17.680 --> 00:04:20.279 teachers as much as it needed labor. And the 00:04:20.279 --> 00:04:23.379 pay was absolutely abysmal. Yeah. The conventional 00:04:23.379 --> 00:04:25.899 paths for a widow to support herself were leading 00:04:25.899 --> 00:04:29.040 straight to starvation. Exactly. So she faced 00:04:29.040 --> 00:04:33.160 a choice. Retreat back east in defeat or adapt 00:04:33.160 --> 00:04:35.990 to the environment she was in. And she chose 00:04:35.990 --> 00:04:38.389 the latter. She took the parlor trick her late 00:04:38.389 --> 00:04:40.990 husband taught her and turned it into a weapon 00:04:40.990 --> 00:04:43.670 for survival. And she didn't just scrape by either. 00:04:43.750 --> 00:04:47.129 She walked into those saloons and became an absolute... 00:04:47.290 --> 00:04:50.410 powerhouse she dominated let's look at the actual 00:04:50.410 --> 00:04:52.610 mechanics of her gameplay because she wasn't 00:04:52.610 --> 00:04:54.910 just relying on the luck of the draw accounts 00:04:54.910 --> 00:04:57.709 from the era indicate she was exceptionally mathematically 00:04:57.709 --> 00:05:00.009 gifted right she was tracking everything she 00:05:00.009 --> 00:05:02.370 was counting cards and calculating odds in her 00:05:02.370 --> 00:05:04.889 head all while sitting in poorly lit saloons 00:05:04.889 --> 00:05:07.829 surrounded by drunk armed men it takes immense 00:05:07.829 --> 00:05:10.610 focus but the math was only half the equation 00:05:10.610 --> 00:05:13.829 her real genius was in psychological warfare 00:05:13.829 --> 00:05:17.759 the psychology of her strategy is brilliant She 00:05:17.759 --> 00:05:20.620 recognized that poker is a game of human observation. 00:05:21.019 --> 00:05:23.500 You were playing the people at the table. Yeah. 00:05:23.540 --> 00:05:27.779 And Alice weaponized the societal norms of the 00:05:27.779 --> 00:05:30.899 era to create an immense psychological blind 00:05:30.899 --> 00:05:33.699 spot in her opponent. She used her winnings and 00:05:33.699 --> 00:05:36.500 we need to pause on this for a second. She was 00:05:36.500 --> 00:05:40.040 pulling in up to six thousand dollars in a single 00:05:40.040 --> 00:05:42.160 night. Which is a fortune back then. A total 00:05:42.160 --> 00:05:45.600 fortune. And she would take that cash. travel 00:05:45.600 --> 00:05:48.220 all the way from these rugged mining camps to 00:05:48.220 --> 00:05:51.279 New York City and buy the most lavish, cutting 00:05:51.279 --> 00:05:53.720 -edge fashion available. The finest dresses. 00:05:53.980 --> 00:05:56.800 Yes. Then she would wear those extravagant dresses 00:05:56.800 --> 00:05:59.660 straight to the poker tables. Consider the cognitive 00:05:59.660 --> 00:06:02.259 dissonance she was engineering there. Wild. You 00:06:02.259 --> 00:06:04.019 have miners and outlaws who are risking their 00:06:04.019 --> 00:06:06.779 lives in the dirt for maybe $3 a day. Yeah. They 00:06:06.779 --> 00:06:09.040 sit down at a table and across from them is a 00:06:09.040 --> 00:06:11.019 woman dressed in high society New York fashion 00:06:11.019 --> 00:06:13.259 looking completely out of place. It scrambles 00:06:13.259 --> 00:06:16.220 their brains. Exactly. They couldn't reconcile 00:06:16.220 --> 00:06:19.019 the image of a refined, vulnerable Victorian 00:06:19.019 --> 00:06:22.620 lady with the reality of a ruthless, mathematically 00:06:22.620 --> 00:06:25.379 precise card shark. They didn't know what hit 00:06:25.379 --> 00:06:28.439 them. She viewed these expensive dresses strictly 00:06:28.439 --> 00:06:31.160 as business investments. She was buying distraction. 00:06:31.680 --> 00:06:34.860 Then it worked. Even well into her 50s, she utilized 00:06:34.860 --> 00:06:37.779 her appearance and fashion to throw men off their 00:06:37.779 --> 00:06:41.079 game. And they fell for it for decades. It is 00:06:41.079 --> 00:06:43.339 a phenomenal paradox. She's sitting across from 00:06:43.339 --> 00:06:46.459 hardened outlaws, dressed like a socialite, counting 00:06:46.459 --> 00:06:48.879 cards and cleaning them out. While leaning into 00:06:48.879 --> 00:06:51.120 the contradictions even further. Oh, she leaned 00:06:51.120 --> 00:06:53.579 all the way in. She always carried a gun, specifically 00:06:53.579 --> 00:06:57.079 a .38 caliber revolver. A frontier essential. 00:06:57.439 --> 00:07:00.300 And she was known for constantly smoking cigars 00:07:00.300 --> 00:07:03.060 at the table. She even worked in Creed, Colorado 00:07:03.060 --> 00:07:05.949 at a saloon owned by Robert Ford. The man who 00:07:05.949 --> 00:07:08.670 assassinated Jesse James. Exactly. That is the 00:07:08.670 --> 00:07:11.730 caliber of grit we're talking about. Yet amidst 00:07:11.730 --> 00:07:14.230 all this frontier chaos, she stubbornly enforced 00:07:14.230 --> 00:07:17.170 her own refined boundaries. The Sunday rule. 00:07:17.389 --> 00:07:19.889 Yes. She strictly refused to ever play poker 00:07:19.889 --> 00:07:22.069 on Sundays. If we connect this to the bigger 00:07:22.069 --> 00:07:25.250 picture, that Sunday rule was a masterstroke 00:07:25.250 --> 00:07:28.829 of branding. Really? How so? Well, in an environment 00:07:28.829 --> 00:07:32.029 that was practically lawless, enforcing a strict 00:07:32.029 --> 00:07:35.790 moral boundary made her an anomaly. Ah, I see. 00:07:35.930 --> 00:07:38.449 The saloon owners didn't push back on her refusal 00:07:38.449 --> 00:07:42.310 to work Sundays. In fact, they marketed it. They 00:07:42.310 --> 00:07:45.329 turned it into a feature. Exactly. Her insistence 00:07:45.329 --> 00:07:47.889 on maintaining the veneer of a respectable woman, 00:07:48.029 --> 00:07:51.589 combined with her cigar -smoking and gun -toting 00:07:51.589 --> 00:07:54.170 reality, turned her into a major attraction. 00:07:54.569 --> 00:07:56.550 Men were lining up and paying good money just 00:07:56.550 --> 00:07:59.550 to sit at a table and be dismantled by this walking 00:07:59.550 --> 00:08:02.009 contradiction. Precisely. Think about how you 00:08:02.009 --> 00:08:04.129 present yourself in high -stakes situations in 00:08:04.129 --> 00:08:06.490 your own life. Do you try to blend in with the 00:08:06.490 --> 00:08:08.689 dominant culture, or do you amplify what makes 00:08:08.689 --> 00:08:11.089 you an outsider to throw your competition off 00:08:11.089 --> 00:08:14.009 balance? That's a great question. Simplified 00:08:14.009 --> 00:08:16.689 her contradictions so effectively that she claimed 00:08:16.689 --> 00:08:19.689 to have won around $250 ,000 over her career. 00:08:19.870 --> 00:08:23.009 Which, just for inflation, is over $3 million 00:08:23.009 --> 00:08:26.430 today. Over $3 million? And she did it all in 00:08:26.430 --> 00:08:28.670 spaces fundamentally designed to exclude her. 00:08:28.850 --> 00:08:31.579 Incredible. But her life wasn't just a clean, 00:08:31.680 --> 00:08:33.720 uninterrupted streak of victories at the card 00:08:33.720 --> 00:08:36.240 table. No, the frontier required a toll. Her 00:08:36.240 --> 00:08:39.100 personal life was marked by intense romance and 00:08:39.100 --> 00:08:42.120 profound tragedy. Let's shift the timeline to 00:08:42.120 --> 00:08:45.360 around 1890 up in Deadwood, South Dakota. Alice 00:08:45.360 --> 00:08:48.360 is working as a dealer at Bedrock Tom's Saloon. 00:08:48.379 --> 00:08:51.179 A classic frontier establishment. A fellow dealer 00:08:51.179 --> 00:08:54.100 named Warren G. Tubbs is working a nearby table. 00:08:54.299 --> 00:08:56.879 Out of nowhere, a drunken miner pulls a knife 00:08:56.879 --> 00:08:59.620 and lunges at him. Just explosive violence. But 00:08:59.620 --> 00:09:01.620 Alice doesn't scream or run for the sheriff. 00:09:01.759 --> 00:09:05.799 She calmly draws her .38 revolver, levels it 00:09:05.799 --> 00:09:08.320 at the attacker, and threatens to drop him right 00:09:08.320 --> 00:09:11.120 there. The ultimate de -escalation. The miner 00:09:11.120 --> 00:09:14.019 backs down, Warren's life is saved, and a frontier 00:09:14.019 --> 00:09:16.159 romance is born. They actually end up getting 00:09:16.159 --> 00:09:18.820 married. It is a really dramatic origin story 00:09:18.820 --> 00:09:21.669 for a marriage. But it is worth noting the friction 00:09:21.669 --> 00:09:23.710 in the historical record regarding their family 00:09:23.710 --> 00:09:26.049 life. Oh, absolutely. Documenting the Wild West 00:09:26.049 --> 00:09:28.809 is often an exercise in piecing together contradictory 00:09:28.809 --> 00:09:32.090 local legends. Exactly. Some sources assert that 00:09:32.090 --> 00:09:34.289 Alice and Warren had seven biological children 00:09:34.289 --> 00:09:36.870 together. Right. While other historical accounts 00:09:36.870 --> 00:09:39.210 insist they had no children of their own, but 00:09:39.210 --> 00:09:41.690 rather that Alice brought a son and a daughter 00:09:41.690 --> 00:09:44.330 into the marriage from a previous undocumented 00:09:44.330 --> 00:09:47.460 relationship and Warren just raised them. The 00:09:47.460 --> 00:09:49.639 family history gets even stranger when you look 00:09:49.639 --> 00:09:52.500 at the footnotes. There is this bizarre tangent 00:09:52.500 --> 00:09:55.399 in the sources about her son, George. George, 00:09:55.399 --> 00:09:58.299 who took the tub's name. Yes. Fast forward decades 00:09:58.299 --> 00:10:02.480 later to 1934. George is 65 years old. Right. 00:10:02.639 --> 00:10:05.700 And he somehow ends up lying unconscious on a 00:10:05.700 --> 00:10:08.139 set of train tracks. With a locomotive bearing 00:10:08.139 --> 00:10:11.759 down on him. Exactly. And two local women miraculously 00:10:11.759 --> 00:10:14.559 spot him and drag him off the rails just seconds 00:10:14.559 --> 00:10:17.370 before the train hits. It's one of those wild, 00:10:17.490 --> 00:10:20.269 almost unbelievable side stories. It really shows 00:10:20.269 --> 00:10:22.450 just how chaotic the trajectory of this family 00:10:22.450 --> 00:10:25.210 was across multiple generations. The drama certainly 00:10:25.210 --> 00:10:27.769 seemed to follow them. Returning to her marriage 00:10:27.769 --> 00:10:29.909 with Warren, the environment eventually caught 00:10:29.909 --> 00:10:32.850 up with them in a devastating way. Warren was 00:10:32.850 --> 00:10:35.429 a painter, and the prevailing theory is that 00:10:35.429 --> 00:10:38.490 the harsh chemicals he worked with severely compromised 00:10:38.490 --> 00:10:42.960 his lungs. It led to tuberculosis. Awful. As 00:10:42.960 --> 00:10:46.120 his health deteriorated, Alice shifted from saloon 00:10:46.120 --> 00:10:48.980 dealer to full -time caretaker. She purchased 00:10:48.980 --> 00:10:51.659 a remote ranch on the Moreau River, roughly 100 00:10:51.659 --> 00:10:54.580 miles from Sturgis. Hoping the isolation and 00:10:54.580 --> 00:10:57.200 fresh air would cure him. But the disease progressed. 00:10:57.720 --> 00:11:00.159 Warren passed away during a bitter winter storm 00:11:00.159 --> 00:11:03.759 on December 31, 1909. The aftermath of his death 00:11:04.059 --> 00:11:06.360 is one of the most harrowing displays of endurance 00:11:06.360 --> 00:11:09.080 in her entire biography. It really is. He dies 00:11:09.080 --> 00:11:11.379 in the dead of winter at an isolated ranch, and 00:11:11.379 --> 00:11:14.100 Alice is entirely alone. Completely isolated. 00:11:14.279 --> 00:11:15.919 She is determined that he will have a proper 00:11:15.919 --> 00:11:17.899 Catholic funeral, which means getting him all 00:11:17.899 --> 00:11:20.019 the way to Sturgis. A huge distance in those 00:11:20.019 --> 00:11:22.679 conditions. So she wraps his body in heavy blankets. 00:11:22.840 --> 00:11:25.159 She loads him into the back of a freezing lumber 00:11:25.159 --> 00:11:27.600 wagon, hitches up a team of horses, and she sets 00:11:27.600 --> 00:11:30.200 out. Wow. She drives that wagon for four straight 00:11:30.200 --> 00:11:32.879 days through blinding snow and frozen trees. 00:11:33.360 --> 00:11:36.539 Completely alone in the freezing wilderness, 00:11:36.919 --> 00:11:40.059 transporting her husband's corpse. The physical 00:11:40.059 --> 00:11:42.779 and psychological stamina required for that journey 00:11:42.779 --> 00:11:46.360 is almost incomprehensible. It's staggering. 00:11:46.620 --> 00:11:49.399 She manages to navigate the storm and delivers 00:11:49.399 --> 00:11:52.740 his body to Sturgis for the funeral. But the 00:11:52.740 --> 00:11:55.360 harsh realities of frontier economics didn't 00:11:55.360 --> 00:11:57.740 pause for mourning. No, they did not. The ranch 00:11:57.740 --> 00:11:59.779 and the medical care had drained her resources. 00:12:00.460 --> 00:12:02.500 She didn't have the funds to cover the burial 00:12:02.500 --> 00:12:05.299 costs. She couldn't afford to stop and grieve. 00:12:05.340 --> 00:12:07.919 Right. The moment the funeral was arranged, she 00:12:07.919 --> 00:12:10.860 traveled to Rapid City, walked into Black Nails 00:12:10.860 --> 00:12:13.620 Resort, and immediately took a job as a bartender 00:12:13.620 --> 00:12:16.299 to pay off the debt. She simply did not allow 00:12:16.299 --> 00:12:19.460 herself to break. And that cold, hard pragmatism 00:12:19.460 --> 00:12:21.580 bled into every aspect of her life from that 00:12:21.580 --> 00:12:24.019 point on. It became her default mode. Here's 00:12:24.019 --> 00:12:26.919 where it gets really interesting. After Warren's 00:12:26.919 --> 00:12:29.419 death, she hires a man named George Huckert to 00:12:29.419 --> 00:12:31.919 work on her homestead. Primarily tending to her 00:12:31.919 --> 00:12:34.379 sheep. Right. And George falls completely in 00:12:34.379 --> 00:12:36.580 love with her. He starts proposing marriage on 00:12:36.580 --> 00:12:38.980 a regular basis. And Alice just ignores him. 00:12:39.220 --> 00:12:42.500 Completely ignores him. But eventually, the homestead 00:12:42.500 --> 00:12:44.840 hits a rough patch, and Alice falls behind on 00:12:44.840 --> 00:12:47.679 his wages. She owes him money. She ends up owing 00:12:47.679 --> 00:12:52.700 George exactly $1 ,008. That's very specific. 00:12:52.919 --> 00:12:55.600 Yes. So she looks at the ledger, runs the numbers, 00:12:55.759 --> 00:12:58.960 and she finally accepts his proposal. Wow. She 00:12:58.960 --> 00:13:01.240 married the man because it was literally cheaper 00:13:01.240 --> 00:13:03.720 than paying him the back wages she owed him. 00:13:03.840 --> 00:13:06.100 It strips away all the romanticized Victorian 00:13:06.100 --> 00:13:08.580 notions of courtship we usually associate with 00:13:08.580 --> 00:13:11.340 that era. It really does. Out on the South Dakota 00:13:11.340 --> 00:13:14.500 plains, a marriage certificate could function 00:13:14.500 --> 00:13:17.669 as a debt settlement. It was a calculated practical 00:13:17.669 --> 00:13:20.570 solution to a financial problem. Pragmatism at 00:13:20.570 --> 00:13:23.549 its peak. Huckard eventually passed away in 1924, 00:13:23.850 --> 00:13:25.929 leaving her a widow for the third time. Which 00:13:25.929 --> 00:13:28.350 brings us to the final and arguably the most 00:13:28.350 --> 00:13:31.049 explosive chapter of her life, the resort years. 00:13:31.409 --> 00:13:33.690 Things really heat up here. Alice eventually 00:13:33.690 --> 00:13:36.330 saved enough capital to purchase a piece of property 00:13:36.330 --> 00:13:38.710 situated right between Sturgis and Fort Meade 00:13:38.710 --> 00:13:41.330 along Bare Boot Creek. She opened a sprawling 00:13:41.330 --> 00:13:43.690 establishment. Yeah, it simply became known as 00:13:43.690 --> 00:13:46.679 Poker Alice's Resort. And this was not just a 00:13:46.679 --> 00:13:50.399 quiet backroom for card games. By 1913, the tension 00:13:50.399 --> 00:13:52.740 surrounding her property hits a boiling point. 00:13:52.879 --> 00:13:55.720 Because Fort Meade was an active military outpost, 00:13:55.860 --> 00:13:58.639 and the dynamic between the soldiers and the 00:13:58.639 --> 00:14:00.879 local frontier establishments was inherently 00:14:00.879 --> 00:14:03.779 volatile. Right. Alice, running a prominent resort, 00:14:04.039 --> 00:14:06.080 was frequently at odds with the enlisted men. 00:14:06.419 --> 00:14:10.539 In July of 1913, that tension fractured. A group 00:14:10.539 --> 00:14:12.980 of soldiers from Troop K, accompanied by some 00:14:12.980 --> 00:14:15.340 National Guardsmen, approached a resort late 00:14:15.340 --> 00:14:17.679 at night. Their explicit intention, according 00:14:17.679 --> 00:14:20.240 to testimonies, was to force entry and start 00:14:20.240 --> 00:14:22.919 a rough house. But Alice refuses to be intimidated. 00:14:23.120 --> 00:14:25.659 She locks the heavy doors and denies them entry. 00:14:25.860 --> 00:14:28.019 So the soldiers escalate the situation. They 00:14:28.019 --> 00:14:30.519 start hurling stones, shattering the resort's 00:14:30.519 --> 00:14:32.440 windows. And then they systematically cut the 00:14:32.440 --> 00:14:34.480 telephone and electrical wires leading to the 00:14:34.480 --> 00:14:36.960 building. They plunge her into darkness and completely 00:14:36.960 --> 00:14:39.340 sever her ability to call the local sheriff for 00:14:39.340 --> 00:14:41.960 help. She is trapped, isolated, and under siege 00:14:41.960 --> 00:14:44.759 by the military. But they wildly miscalculated 00:14:44.759 --> 00:14:47.980 her response. Alice doesn't hide. She retrieves 00:14:47.980 --> 00:14:50.700 her firearm, steps into the chaos, and opens 00:14:50.700 --> 00:14:53.600 fire into the dark. She fires five rounds. She 00:14:53.600 --> 00:14:56.940 hits five men. Wow. She severely wounds a soldier 00:14:56.940 --> 00:15:00.039 named Joseph C. Minor, and she strikes private 00:15:00.039 --> 00:15:03.179 Fred Koetzel in the head, killing him. The aftermath 00:15:03.179 --> 00:15:05.539 is an absolute legal circus. I can only imagine. 00:15:05.899 --> 00:15:08.679 The authorities arrive, and Alice, along with 00:15:08.679 --> 00:15:11.950 six women working at her resort, Jenny, Bessie, 00:15:11.950 --> 00:15:14.730 Ann, Bertie, Mabel, and Edith are immediately 00:15:14.730 --> 00:15:17.049 arrested and thrown into the Meade County Jail. 00:15:17.090 --> 00:15:19.909 Right. The state's attorney launches a homicide 00:15:19.909 --> 00:15:22.210 investigation into the death of Private Kosel. 00:15:22.570 --> 00:15:25.389 However, when examining the broken glass, the 00:15:25.389 --> 00:15:27.750 cut wires, and the testimonies, he concludes 00:15:27.750 --> 00:15:30.450 that Alice acted entirely in self -defense. She 00:15:30.450 --> 00:15:32.450 was protecting her property and her life from 00:15:32.450 --> 00:15:35.350 a violent, coordinated mob. Exactly. He clears 00:15:35.350 --> 00:15:38.190 her of all murder charges. But the local authorities 00:15:38.190 --> 00:15:40.669 don't just let her walk back to her resort, do 00:15:40.669 --> 00:15:42.850 they? Not at all. This is where we see the systemic 00:15:42.850 --> 00:15:45.269 hypocrisy of the era's legal code. Yeah. The 00:15:45.269 --> 00:15:47.350 authorities couldn't convict her of murder because 00:15:47.350 --> 00:15:49.710 frontier law heavily favored property defense. 00:15:50.509 --> 00:15:52.830 However, they had her in a jail cell and they 00:15:52.830 --> 00:15:55.029 wanted her operation shut down. So they pivot 00:15:55.029 --> 00:15:57.970 their strategy. They use the raid as an excuse 00:15:57.970 --> 00:16:00.990 to charge her with operating a house of ill fame. 00:16:01.470 --> 00:16:04.710 Essentially, a brothel. They used moral legislation 00:16:04.710 --> 00:16:07.590 to punish her when the criminal legislation failed 00:16:07.590 --> 00:16:10.669 to stick. And that sets the tone for her twilight 00:16:10.669 --> 00:16:14.179 years. She is constantly battling the law. Two 00:16:14.179 --> 00:16:16.879 years later, in 1915, there is another shootout 00:16:16.879 --> 00:16:19.279 at the resort involving soldiers. Which the press 00:16:19.279 --> 00:16:21.980 dismissively writes off as a booze fight. Then 00:16:21.980 --> 00:16:25.039 the 1920s arrive, bringing prohibition. Her resort 00:16:25.039 --> 00:16:27.059 becomes a target for federal and local agents. 00:16:27.419 --> 00:16:30.500 In 1924, she gets raided and busted for bootlegging. 00:16:30.720 --> 00:16:33.279 And in 1925, she is raided again and hit with 00:16:33.279 --> 00:16:35.919 another prostitution conviction. By 1928, the 00:16:35.919 --> 00:16:37.940 compounding legal fees and convictions finally 00:16:37.940 --> 00:16:40.419 cornered her. She was facing a lengthy sentence 00:16:40.419 --> 00:16:42.549 in the state penitentiary. But she was in her 00:16:42.549 --> 00:16:45.730 late 70s. Right. Her health was rapidly deteriorating 00:16:45.730 --> 00:16:47.929 and the prospect of prison was essentially a 00:16:47.929 --> 00:16:50.289 death sentence. But the community dynamics at 00:16:50.289 --> 00:16:53.169 play here are fascinating. She was a convicted 00:16:53.169 --> 00:16:56.049 bootlegger and brothel operator, yet she wasn't 00:16:56.049 --> 00:16:58.909 treated like a pariah. Not at all. The citizens 00:16:58.909 --> 00:17:02.370 of Sturgis rally around her. Hundreds of locals 00:17:02.370 --> 00:17:04.450 sign a petition and deliver it to South Dakota 00:17:04.450 --> 00:17:07.710 Governor William J. Bulo. Pleading for clemency 00:17:07.710 --> 00:17:10.269 based on her age and pioneer status. Exactly. 00:17:10.450 --> 00:17:14.289 And on December 20th, 1928, the governor relents 00:17:14.289 --> 00:17:16.950 and grants her a pardon. The state backs down 00:17:16.950 --> 00:17:19.410 and Alice finally retires from the vice trade. 00:17:19.740 --> 00:17:21.859 The petition really illustrates the dual nature 00:17:21.859 --> 00:17:24.759 of her legacy. It does. The town recognized her 00:17:24.759 --> 00:17:27.279 as a lawbreaker, but they also recognized her 00:17:27.279 --> 00:17:29.279 as an architectural pillar of their own history. 00:17:29.539 --> 00:17:32.500 She had survived the mud of Leadville, outsmarted 00:17:32.500 --> 00:17:35.140 outlaws at the poker table, and braved blizzards 00:17:35.140 --> 00:17:37.500 to bury her dead. They couldn't stomach the idea 00:17:37.500 --> 00:17:39.960 of that resilience rotting in a concrete cell. 00:17:40.220 --> 00:17:43.019 So what does this all mean? How does the saga 00:17:43.019 --> 00:17:46.380 of Poker Alice finally close? In early 1930, 00:17:46.700 --> 00:17:49.339 at the age of 78, Alice required a golf bladder 00:17:49.339 --> 00:17:51.779 operation in Rapid City. Given her age and the 00:17:51.779 --> 00:17:54.019 medical standards of the time, the prognosis 00:17:54.019 --> 00:17:56.460 was grim. She fought through the initial surgery 00:17:56.460 --> 00:17:59.460 and showed brief signs of recovery, but her body 00:17:59.460 --> 00:18:02.339 finally gave out. She passed away on February 00:18:02.339 --> 00:18:06.240 27, 1930, and was buried at St. Aloysius Cemetery 00:18:06.240 --> 00:18:10.680 in Sturgis. Yet she managed to execute one final 00:18:10.680 --> 00:18:13.890 calculated play from beyond the grave. She absolutely 00:18:13.890 --> 00:18:16.470 did. When her will was executed, it shocked her 00:18:16.470 --> 00:18:19.049 surviving family. She completely disinherited 00:18:19.049 --> 00:18:21.190 all of her blood relatives. All of them? Her 00:18:21.190 --> 00:18:23.390 stated reason in the legal documents was that 00:18:23.390 --> 00:18:25.450 they had ignored her and failed to support her 00:18:25.450 --> 00:18:28.269 during her declining, vulnerable years. Instead, 00:18:28.430 --> 00:18:31.190 she liquidated her estate and divided every penny 00:18:31.190 --> 00:18:33.589 among the loyal friends who had actually stood 00:18:33.589 --> 00:18:36.309 by her. She demanded respect until her last breath, 00:18:36.490 --> 00:18:39.230 rewarding loyalty and financially punishing those 00:18:39.230 --> 00:18:41.670 who dismissed her. It is the ultimate encapsulation 00:18:41.670 --> 00:18:44.359 of her worldview. To summarize the breadth of 00:18:44.359 --> 00:18:47.259 Alice Iver's life is to observe a woman who fiercely 00:18:47.259 --> 00:18:49.960 refused to be boxed in by any single label. Society 00:18:49.960 --> 00:18:52.779 tried to mold her into a refined Virginia lady, 00:18:52.900 --> 00:18:55.079 but she evolved into a mathematically lethal 00:18:55.079 --> 00:18:58.160 gambler. She was a devoted caretaker who risked 00:18:58.160 --> 00:19:00.019 her own life in a blizzard for her husband's 00:19:00.019 --> 00:19:02.880 dignity. Yet she was also a ruthlessly pragmatic 00:19:02.880 --> 00:19:05.759 boss who married an employee just to balance 00:19:05.759 --> 00:19:08.960 her financial ledger. She weaponized high fashion 00:19:08.960 --> 00:19:11.640 to blind her enemies and defended her property 00:19:11.640 --> 00:19:13.799 with a revolver in the dark. She looked at a 00:19:13.799 --> 00:19:16.380 world that gave her terrible odds and systematically 00:19:16.380 --> 00:19:19.519 built her own rulebook to beat the house. This 00:19:19.519 --> 00:19:22.259 raises an important question. Poker Alice used 00:19:22.259 --> 00:19:24.740 the strict societal expectations of her time 00:19:24.740 --> 00:19:27.380 as a smokescreen to achieve total independence. 00:19:27.799 --> 00:19:30.119 In our modern world of constant information and 00:19:30.119 --> 00:19:32.720 personal branding, what rigid rules or expectations 00:19:32.720 --> 00:19:35.180 are you blindly following, and how could you 00:19:35.180 --> 00:19:36.980 subtly rewrite them to play your own winning 00:19:36.980 --> 00:19:37.299 hand?