DORA DUFRAN

Dora DuFran rose from humble beginnings to become one of the Old West's most successful madams. Born Amy Helen Bolshaw in England in 1868, she emigrated as an infant to America and spent her early childhood in New Jersey and Nebraska.

     By her early teens, the pretty and headstrong Dora had drifted into the "world of sin," working as a dance hall girl and occasional prostitute. Around age 15, lured by news of the Black Hills Gold Rush, she headed to the lawless boomtown of Deadwood, South Dakota. In about 1883, the teenager boldly opened her own brothel – making a name for herself in the notorious mining camp of Deadwood.

     Dora quickly proved to be a shrewd and enterprising madam. She recruited new "girls" wherever she could. Her main competition in those early days was another local madam, Mollie Johnson, yet Dora's business only grew.

     Over the years, she established brothels in Deadwood and other frontier towns like Lead, Sturgis, and especially the rowdy cow town of Belle Fourche. One of her most popular houses was the bawdily named "Diddlin' Dora's" in Belle Fourche, which advertised itself with the tongue-in-cheek slogan: "Dining, Drinking, and Dancing – a place where you can bring your mother." Cowboys loved the establishment, though one quipped, "I wouldn't want my mother to know I had ever been there."

     Running a chain of brothels in the rough-and-tumble West required showmanship and strict management. Dora was known for her flamboyant style – she even kept a pet parrot – but also demanded high standards from her ladies. She insisted that her girls maintain good hygiene and dress respectably, aiming to make her brothels as clean and inviting as possible.

     Legend credits Dora with coining the term "cathouse" for a brothel after she supposedly stocked her place with cats to keep the mice at bay. In truth, the term was already in use, but the story of Dora's cats only added to her colorful reputation. Dora's efforts paid off: by the late 1880s, she was prosperous enough to marry a well-known gambler, Joseph DuFran – a husband who accepted her profession and helped run the business.

     Despite (or perhaps because of) the illicit nature of her trade, Dora DuFran became a beloved figure to many in the community. She had a mischievous sense of humor and, as some recalled, a generous "heart of gold," often nursing the sick and helping the poor when no one else would. In Deadwood's heyday, nearly everyone knew Madam Dora. One frequent visitor was the notorious frontierswoman Martha Jane Canary, known as Calamity Jane.

     Dora and Calamity Jane first met in the mid-1880s, and the two struck up a rough-edged friendship. Calamity Jane, hard-living and destitute at times, occasionally worked for Dora – doing odd jobs or even prostitution during lean periods. Years later, their bond would resurface poignantly.

     By 1903, Calamity Jane was a broken-down shadow of her former self, ravaged by alcoholism and illness. That spring, she returned to the Black Hills and sought refuge at Dora DuFran's brothel in Belle Fourche. Dora took her old friend in and gave Jane work cooking and laundering for the girls, as Jane was no longer young or healthy enough to entertain customers. Calamity Jane earned her keep under Dora's roof for a few months, the once-fearless sharpshooter now reduced to domestic chores.

      In late July 1903, Jane took a train to visit friends near Deadwood. She fell gravely ill on the journey (not surprisingly, she had been drinking heavily) and was carried off the train at the tiny town of Terry, South Dakota. A doctor was called, but it was too late – Calamity Jane died in a boarding house on August 1, 1903, likely from pneumonia and complications of alcoholism. The loss of her friend deeply saddened Dora. Decades later, she would publish a short booklet titled Low Down on Calamity Jane, sharing insider tales about Jane's life as only Dora could.

     After her husband Joseph died in 1909, Dora moved her base of operations full-time to Rapid City, South Dakota. There, she opened a new brothel that thrived well into the 1920s. During Prohibition, Dora's Rapid City house even doubled as a secret speakeasy, adding bootleg liquor to its list of attractions. She remained every bit the businesswoman in her later years and still had a flair for the comic. One popular story tells of a flash flood that once stranded several respectable Rapid City business people overnight at Dora's brothel. When their wives found out where the men had been trapped, they stormed in after the waters receded, brandishing rolling pins and umbrellas at their sheepish husbands. Dora likely had a good laugh over the spectacle.

     By the 1930s, Madam Dora DuFran had mellowed somewhat, but she never entirely retired from the life that had made her name. In the summer of 1934, at around 65 years of age, Dora suffered heart trouble and passed away at her home in Rapid City. She was buried in Deadwood's Mount Moriah Cemetery beside her beloved Joe and her pet parrot, Fred. The local newspaper, perhaps with tongue in cheek, eulogized Dora as "a noted social worker." Today, four stone urns adorned with grinning imps mark Dora DuFran's grave, which is said to symbolize the four brothels she once operated. It's a fitting memorial for a woman whose life story became a legend of the Old West while living entirely on her terms.