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Frank was himself a card player and gave Alice an introduction to
gambling. Initially, Alice would stand behind Frank at the tables to
observe and learn the skills that would go on to serve her well in
later years. Soon Alice Ivers was taking her place in games while Frank
was away working; she quickly demonstrated a good feel for poker. A
tragic mining accident in Leadville killed Frank Duffield when
resetting an unexploded dynamite charge. The young widow looked to
poker to earn herself a living.
After a short while, the regular poker players in the area had bestowed
her with the nickname of Poker Alice. She became adept at counting
cards, calculating pot odds and diverting the attention that male players
gave to their game with her feminine charms. Many photographs in
circulation show a rough, cigar smoking woman in her late years,
although reports of the time suggest she was a handsome woman, who
could entice men even when into her late 50's. Her charms were no
doubt enhanced by her passion for dressing only in the finest clothes
that her poker skills paid for.
Alice journeyed between boom towns just as other gamblers and
prospectors of the time did. With a ready sum hoarded through her
poker play, she would cross two thirds of the American continent going
to New York City for a spending extravaganza. She would never stay
long in the East promptly returning to the Mid-West and to the tables
again.
She much enjoyed her chosen lifestyle and is quoted as saying, "I
would rather play poker with five or six experts than to eat."
Notwithstanding her unbridled passion for the game her religious
upbringing meant she never played (worked) on Sunday.
Alice Ivers, fashionable, fair-haired, blue-eyed, like most
professional card players of the day also packed a punch, usually
carrying a .38 within easy reach.
A story tells, after leaving Creede around 1890, Alice made her way to
Deadwood, South Dakota taking a job dealing cards in the Bedrock Tom
saloon. It was there that she met her second husband, W. G. Tubbs. One
night, Tubbs dealing at a neighbouring table, had a drunken miner pull
a knife with intent to use it on the dealer. Alice produced her .38
and shot the miner in his arm. It was an odd way for a romance to
begin, however soon after Alice Ivers Duffield married Warren G.
Tubbs.
Tubbs lacked the aptitude for poker that Alice had preferring regular
employment to the eccentricities of a card player's life. Alice
charitably said "he wasn't lucky." They had an agreement for him
keep working in a regular occupation while she went to town to play
cards.
During their marriage they had 7 children, 4 sons and 3 daughters. Intending to
prevent the children from following her lifestyle and breaking the
cycle for herself, the family moved to a remote homestead northeast of
Sturgis on the Moreau River. Their new home was far removed from the
saloons and gambling halls where together they enjoyed the relative
peace.
Within a few months of their relocation Tubbs fell ill with
tuberculosis. Alice fought to nurse him back to health, but during a
cold 1910 winter, Tubbs still not fully fit from his prior condition,
contracted pneumonia and died. Alice made the lonely 50 mile trek to
Sturgis with her husbands corpse and was forced to pawn her wedding
ring to pay for the funeral.
Following that sadness, she went back to the saloons and poker tables
and won more than enough money to buy her treasured ring back.
Re-bitten by the poker bug, Alice began making regular trips to
Sturgis to play cards in her favourite saloons; while she was away she
employed George Huckert to watch over her homestead. George, besotted
with Alice had proposed to her on many occasions always being turned
down; but when finally his back wages were totalling over $1,000 she
agreed, remarking, "It would be cheaper to marry him than pay him
off." The marriage was brief, Huckert died in 1913. Alice was a widow
for the third time.
Alice purchased a large house near to Fort Meade, on Bear Butte Creek
and appreciated an opportunity for some gaming tables downstairs and
some girls upstairs. She set to work on her newest project; as the
house needed some work Alice went to the bank for a loan.
Again attributed to Alice, "I went to the bank for a $2,000 loan to
build on an addition and go to Kansas City to recruit some fresh
girls. When I told the banker I'd repay the loan in two years, he
scratched his head for a minute then let me have the money. In less
than a year I was back in his office paying off the loan. He asked how
I was able to come up with the money so fast. I took a couple chaws on
the end of my cigar and told him. Well, it's this way; I knew the
Grand Army of the Republic was having an encampment here in Sturgis.
And I knew that the state Elks convention would be here, too. But I
plumb forgot about all those Methodist preachers coming to town for a
conference."
The common story also linked to Poker Alice, if true, tells much of the
times. A group of soldiers in the house became unruly, so Alice fired
off one rifle shot to quiet them down. Unfortunately, the bullet
passed through two of the soldiers, killing one of them. The police
closed down the house, took Alice and all six of her girls to jail. At
the trial, the shooting was judged accidental and she was acquitted
but from then on, the authorities at Fort Meade were no longer content
to turn a blind eye to her activities.
By this time Alice was in her late 60's and was often arrested for her
drunkenness and keeping a bawdy house. She always paid her fines and
went straight back to business as usual. Eventually, she was sentenced
to a term in the state penitentiary for her repetitive convictions.
Being 75 years old at the time of her sentencing, she was almost
immediately pardoned by the governor.
Alice died on February 27th 1930 following a gall bladder operation in
Rapid City and was buried in the St. Aloysius Cemetery, Sturgis. For
the last 20 years of her life, in addition to running the house in
Sturgis, she was an often-seen, card player in Deadwood.
The town tolerated gambling and prostitution up until 1987. Her house
was bought by a businessman and had it moved to Junction Avenue in
Sturgis where it now serves as a Bed and Breakfast Inn. |
