Denver Madame Mattie Silks ~ Julie Lence

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   Last month I blogged about Denver Madame, Jennie Rogers. This month I’m featuring Jennie’s rival and friend, Mattie Silks.

   Mattie was born in 1847. Some historians believe she was born in Terre Haute, Indiana while others say she was born in Buffalo, New York. Regardless of which is true, little is known about her childhood, including her maiden name or the reason she ran away from home when she was 16. By age nineteen, she was running a brothel in Springfield, Illinois. Many believe her to be the youngest madame on record, and Mattie credits her short height, ample bosom and blonde beauty in aiding her success. She was also a shrewd businesswoman and used those smarts to follow the railroad west, opening several houses along the way to serve the men building the railroad. Trekking through Kansas, and always carrying a gun, she met the love of her life, Cort Thomson, who left his family to follow Mattie.  Cort was tall and handsome, thought of himself as a southern gentleman, and held the occupation of professional runner. He firmly believed regular work was below him and would rather move from town to town to run foot races against the locals, earning a wage through the bets placed on him. He also gambled, drank, spent a lot of Mattie’s money, and was married to a woman in Texas who would not give him a divorce, so he and Mattie ‘lived together’.       

With Cort at her side, Mattie arrived in Colorado and opened brothels in Leadville and Georgetown before settling in Denver in 1876. She was 29 years old, and like her rival Jennie Silks, knew she could make more money in Denver from the men coming down from the mines in the mountain in search of female companionship. She eventually bought a house on McGaa Street, which later became Holladay Street and is currently Market Street. She hired twelve ‘boarders’ to occupy the house, then went on to buy more buildings on Holladay and rent them to other madames.  Because of her love for silk dresses, it is thought this is where her last name originated, though no one knows for sure. Gossip suggests that while in Georgetown she struck up a relationship with George A. Silks, who was a bartender and professional gambler, but with Cort usually close to her and the fact no record exists of Mattie and George marrying, and Mattie using the name Silks while in Kansas, this bit of gossip is likely false.  

As with other madames, Mattie did have a wild side and often found scandals attached to her name. She was arrested several times for fighting with other women in the trade, mostly over money or Cort, her most famous fight over him involving Katie Fulton. Mattie had won a thousand dollars on one of Cort’s footraces and threw a party to celebrate. Katie was in attendance and had been trying for weeks to lure Cort from Mattie. The situation came to a head at the party, and with each believing she was the better shot, they dueled in the street with pistols and missed each other, but Cort was grazed along the neck. Some suggest Mattie’s bullet struck him. Others say Katie’s bullet struck him, and each side of the debate wonders if the shooter actually meant to shoot him and not her adversary? With Cort bleeding and Mattie unable to stop the flow, she took him to the hospital. Eventually, he forgave her. She took him back and life continued.    

Mattie with her horse
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  With her business savvy of buying and selling properties along Holladay street, plus her venture into horse racing, Mattie enjoyed a rich lifestyle, complete with expensive clothes she often went to Kansas to purchase. Her dresses always had two pockets; the left to hold gold coins and the right to hold her ivory handled pistol. She became known around Denver as the Queen of the Red Light District, and purchased a ranch for Cort near Wray, keeping the title in her name. Which was a good thing. In 1884, word arrived that Cort’s wife has passed away, leaving him free to marry Mattie, which he did. His daughter (some suggest his granddaughter) came to live with them, but theirs was not a happy home. Cort never abandoned his ways of gambling, drinking, and cheating, and Mattie finally filed for divorce in April 1891. She asked the court to return  all of the ranch’s holding to her name, stating that she had given Cort money to keep the ranch going and upon his wasting it on woman, booze and gambling,  she feared he was going to sell off everything and continue with his waywardness. The court granted her request, and later, Cort apologized to Mattie. She took him back and ceased with the divorce.    

Mattie and Cort traveled to London in 1897 for Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee and then went on to Klondike to join the gold rush. Mattie ran a house in Dawson City and Cort continued with his gambling and living off of Mattie’s money until Mattie decided she didn’t like living in the mud and the rain and paid an enormous amount for them to return to Denver and her stable of 21 horses on her ranch in Wray before the weather changed and kept them in Klondike. (Interestingly, only one ever won a race.) Mattie resided in a small house on Lawrence Street, keeping her business separate from her personal life, while Cort stayed at the ranch. After a while, neighbors accused him of stealing their stock and changing their brands to his. Hearing the accusations, Mattie hired a new foreman, Jack Ready, to run the ranch correctly . Cort was eventually jailed for a spell, and in 1903 he became deathly ill after accepting a drink from his ranch hands. Mattie was by his side when he died a few days later, some say not from poison but from cirrhosis. She adopted his daughter, Rita, who was sixteen at the time. Rita married at age 18 and Mattie sold the ranch, moving foreman Jack Ready to Denver, where he became her  bookkeeper and bouncer.

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  As I mentioned last month, Mattie went on to buy Jennie Rogers’ parlor, dubbed the House of Mirrors, when Jennie died and had her name, M. Silks, engraved on the door. In 1915, prostitution was abolished and Mattie’s reign as Queen of the Red Light District ended. She tried her hand at operating a hotel, but gave up and went on to sell much of her belongings, taking up residence in a cottage on Lawrence Street. At 77, she fell and broke hip, did so a second time and landed in the hospital. To ensure she had someone to take care of her, she married Jack, and later passed at age 83 in 1929, leaving her estate, which wasn’t much for a woman who has once been filthy rich, to Jack and to Rita. She was buried in Fairmount Cemetery under the name Martha A. Ready, with Cort’s unmarked grave beside her.