Eleanore “Madame Mustache” Dumont

Dumont had now achieved a small fortune and she wanted to leave her profession. Though she knew little about animals, she purchased a ranch in Carson City, Nevada. She soon became taken with a handsome cattleman named Jack McKnight in whom she placed her trust, and she signed her property over to him for his management. Sadly, McKnight was actually a conman and in less than a month he had disappeared, selling her ranch, and leaving her with all the debts. Dumont tracked him down and killed him with two blasts from a shotgun. Although she would much later admit to the crime, at the time of the shooting, there was not enough evidence to charge her.

Lacking any money, she returned to gambling again and in 1861, set up her table in Pioche, Nevada. She followed the gold, moved quite a lot and was a charmer of men.

Eleanore Dumont “Madame Mustache” Eleanor Dumont, also called Eleonore Alphonsine Dumant, born as Simone Jules (1829–1879), was a notorious gambler on the American Western Frontier, especially during the California Gold Rush. She was also known by her nickname “Madame Moustache,” due to the appearance of a line of dark hair on her upper lip.

Dumont was one of the more colorful women of the Old West. Because of her accent, it was rumored that she came from France, but others think New Orleans may have been her place of birth. In either case, she turned up in San Francisco in 1849 where she soon found herself working as a card dealer at the Bella Union Hotel.

Suspected of cardsharping, she was let go from the Bella Union and in 1854, Dumont arrived in Nevada City, California, dressed to the nines. To the curiosity of many, she opened up a high brow gambling parlor, the Vingt-etUn. She served champaign instead of whiskey, permitted only behaved, clean men, into her establishment, and prohibited cursing in her presence. It soon became a quite the happening place! Dumont was witty and charming, appealingly foreign, and knew how to deal cards like a pro. No women were allowed in her establishment, save herself, and women dealers were virtually unheard of.

Her place became so popular, that Dumont took on a partner and opened an even larger place called Dumont’s Palace. They also added the much more popular games of Faro and Chuck-a-luck, and her second venture became equally successful.

Two years after her arrival in Nevada City, she started to develop a pronounced moustache, later earning her the unfortunate nickname “Madame Moustache.” The gold eventually ran out in Nevada, but she would follow the new strikes and she headed to Columbia, California, where in 1857 she set up a table in a hotel.

Over the years, as she aged, and her fortunes diminished, she added prostitution to her repertoire, opening brothels in Fort Benton as well as Bannack, Montana. Years later her luck had run out and her final stop was Bodie, the wildest most notorious town in eastern California to deal cards at the Magnolia Saloon. Losing her gaming ability and a friend’s bankroll, she left the table. Leaving a letter dated September 8, 1879, saying that she was “tired of life” instructing the disposition of her effects, she walked a mile out of town drinking a bottle or red wine laced with morphine and committed suicide; dying as she lived — on her terms.

A Wild Legend of Truckee: Carrie Pryor

Courtesy of biglife magazine, John Caldwell

During the 1800s women in Truckee were not usually public figures, but Carrie Pryor a.k.a. “Spring Chicken” was an exception to the norm. Pryor seemed to enjoy stirring up trouble wherever she went and was infamous for having many a love interest.

During the 1870s, she was at the center of a long list of shootouts, stabbings, brawls, and other disturbances that occurred around town. Pryor brazenly defied both local law enforcement and the notoriously powerful vigilante gang called The 601.

Her most notorious incident was a shootout in 1877 on Front Street with a rival “lady of the night” named Lotta Morton. The gun battle ended when Morton finally succumbed to her wounds while Pryor escaped without being hit once. Her fiercely independent lifestyle as woman in a frontier mountain town continues to be the stuff of legend. Her ghost is even rumored to haunt several of the shops on Front Street to this day.