MATTIE SILKS - FAMOUS MADAM OF THE WEST by Pam North Martha A. Silks, born on a small Kansas farm in 1846, decided when she was very young that she would be a madam in a fancy parlor house. She ran away from home in her early teens. In 1865, when she was only 19 years old, she had realized her goal, managing a parlor house in Springfield, Illinois. She moved to Olathe, Kansas, where she stayed until conservative citizens ran her out of town. She continued to work her way west, running houses in Dodge City, Abilene and Hays City during the summers when cattle drivers were in town, and spending winters in Kansas City. As the cattle towns began to settle down, she moved to Georgetown, Colorado, running a brothel on Brownell Street. In 1876, at the age of twenty-nine, she had made enough money there to travel on to Denver, where she launched her career to become one of Colorado's most well-known madams. Mattie was short, blonde, blue-eyed, attractive and well-upholstered, and she resembled Lily Langtree, the leading actress of the time. Mattie's dresses always had two pockets so that she could carry gold coins in her left one and an ivory-handled pistol in the right. She bragged that she was a crack shot, and had been taught by no other than Wild Bill Hickok. In Georgetown, Mattie had met Cortese D. Thompson, a tall, handsome, sandy-haired professional foot racer who would play a prominent role in her life. Cort was popular with the ladies, and regarded himself as too good to work hard. Mattie was happy to support him, and through the years he spent a large part of the fortune she made. Cort was married to a Texas woman who refused to give him a divorce, but he moved in with Mattie in Denver. He lived as Mattie's kept man; she adored him and spoiled him rotten, denying him nothing. He was known to occasionally ride his horse into her house. Mattie opened a fancy house on Holladay Street (later named Market Street), and was successful immediately. Her main operation was located at 1916-22 Market Street, but she purchased other buildings along the street and rented them to other madams, one of whom was Jennie Rogers, who would become her greatest rival. Mattie's House of Mirrors, at 1942 Market Street, was one of the most elegant and famous of Colorado brothels; it was purchased in 1910 from the estate of Jennie Rogers. The building had been been a thriving parlor house since 1889, and it continued to prosper under Mattie's management until about 1915, when a national moral reform movement hit town and extinguished the red lights in Denver. The building was restored in 1998 as an elegant restaurant with an upstairs bar and museum to the world's oldest profession. Matti reportedly once fought a pistol duel in 1877 with Kate Fulton, a competitor in the business. It took place in Denver's Olympic Gardens at a champagne party that Mattie had thrown to celebrate a race Cort had won (putting $1,000 in the pocket of Mattie, who had bet on him). During the party, attended by all the "ladies" of the row, Mattie and Kate began to argue, possible over Cort Thompson. Someone made the suggestion that they should settle the dispute as men did, by fighting a duel. The two women were handed pistols and they paced off the distance. They turned and both fired, missing each other, but someone's shot wounded Cort in the neck. He survived, and Kate Fulton hightailed it out of town after the incident. Cort's wife died in 1884, and he married Mattie soon after that. A couple of years later, his daughter (by his first marriage) died, leaving a small child. Cortez refused to acknowledge his orphaned grandchild, but Mattie was sympathetic to the child's plight; she knew that many of the women who turned to prostitution had come from orphanages. She eventually adopted the child herself, then placed her in a boarding home. Cort died when Mattie was 54 years old; she spent lavishly on his funeral. Her business was still doing well. The 1900 census listed Mattie as a "land lady" renting to "female boarders" ages 19 to 25. Mattie went east each year to recruit fresh, young talent, which she paraded through the streets of Denver upon her return, highly effective advertising which attracted new customers and re-energized old ones. She treated her girls well, allowing them to keep half the high prices she charged for their favors, and serving them two fine meals daily. Mattie hired Handsome Jack Ready, a Wray, Colorado rancher, to be her financial advisor and bouncer. He was several years younger than she, but it didn't take long for them to become lovers. Mattie married him in 1923, when she was 77. They moved to a house on Laurence Street, retiring to a respectable life of raising horses and watching Denver boom. Mattie died on January 7, 1929 at the age of 83, from complications of a fractured hip. She was buried under the name of Martha Ready beside Cort Thompson's unmarked grave in Denver's Fairmount Cemetery. By the time she died, prostitution had been outlawed. Even though she had been a successful businesswoman, making over a million dollars in her lifetime, she died with lass than $4,000 worth of assets, which were split between her adopted granddaughter and Ready. Ready died a couple of years later. The thing that Mattie was proudest of was that she had never been a prostitute and had never worked for another madam.