MADAME MUSTACHE

 

One elegant gambler stood out among the dusty miners and prospectors in the boomtowns of the American Gold Rush. Eleanor Dumont—better known as Madame Mustache—earned fame as one of the Old West’s first female blackjack dealers. With charm, cunning, and a touch of mystery, she ran fashionable gambling halls and held her own in an era and environment dominated by men. Her life story is a cocktail of glamour, grit, humor, and ultimate tragedy, embodying the spirit of the frontier itself.

     Eleanor Dumont’s origins were shrouded in the kind of mystique she would later use to captivate crowds. She was likely born around 1829, possibly to French Creole parents in New Orleans. By her early twenties, she reinvented herself as Madame Eleanore Dumont, a petite Frenchwoman with an exotic allure. During the California Gold Rush, she arrived in San Francisco (around 1849) under the name Simone Jules, presenting herself as a refined lady from Paris. She may have been Louisiana-born, but the nouveau riche miners didn’t care – a French accent and fashionable dress were enough to enchant them.

     Young “Madame Dumont” found employment dealing cards at establishments like the Bella Union gambling saloon in San Francisco. At the card table, she displayed elegant dignity and calm nerves, earning a small fortune at the game of vingt-et-un (Twenty-One), the precursor to blackjack. She was aloof yet tantalizing, mixing ladylike manners with the shrewdness of a riverboat gambler. Eventually, rumors spread that Eleanor might be “card sharping” (cheating). Bella Union dismissed Ms. DuMont after she had already pocketed substantial winnings. Unfazed, the enterprising lady took her talents to booming mining camps in the Sierra Nevada foothills, where her legend truly began.

     In 1854, Nevada City, California, was a rough-and-tumble gold camp short on women and long on lonely miners. Into this male-dominated frontier walked Eleanor Dumont, dressed in fine silk and diamonds, fresh off a stagecoach. Her arrival caused an immediate stir. Seeing a well-dressed “French” lady strolling down Broad Street in that bawdy town had dropped jaws, and miners whispered in curiosity. Two eager young miners carried her bags to the hotel, and soon, the whole city buzzed about the mysterious Madame Dumont.

     Handbills announcing the grand opening of “Vingt-et-Un,” the finest new gambling parlor in town, solved the mystery. On opening night, miners who normally slouched in mud-caked boots showed up bathed and barbered, donning their best attire for the privilege of gambling with the lady dealer. Madame Dumont’s establishment was classy by frontier standards: richly carpeted, lit by gas chandeliers, and offering complimentary champagne to all. She prohibited unruly behavior — only well-groomed gentlemen could enter, and she discouraged cursing in her presence.

     Inside, Eleanore (as she spelled her name) charmed the crowd with vivacious banter and a warm smile. She rolled her cigarettes and sipped champagne as she dealt cards, deftly maintaining an air of propriety by reminding any overly forward fellow that she was a lady. Few miners knew how to play vingt-et-un (most were used to the game of faro), but they joined in for the novelty of having a woman dealer. Madame Dumont dealt expertly and usually won more than she lost—yet when miners lost their money, she would coo apologies and treat them to more champagne, softening the sting. If someone beat her, she applauded their “good fortune” with genuine delight. The men were smitten; losing a few dollars felt like a fair trade for an evening in the company of this charming Frenchwoman.

     Under her management, the Vingt-et-Un parlor thrived. Eleanore ran a tight ship: no other women were allowed to loiter around (likely to keep prostitutes from causing distractions), and she kept her personal life entirely private, enhancing her mystique. By the late 1850s, she had saved a tidy sum from the constant stream of gold dust and coins changing hands at her table. To expand the business, she partnered with a professional gambler from New York named David Tobin, and together, they opened Dumont’s Palace, a larger gambling hall featuring additional games like faro and chuck-a-luck. They even hired a small orchestra of violinists to serenade the gamblers, adding to the upscale atmosphere. For a few golden years, Madame Dumont was truly the queen of the gamblers in Nevada City – the toast of the town and an object of fascination and respect.

     Like many boomtown stories, the gold veins around Nevada City eventually ran dry. By 1857, the crowds of free-spending miners had moved on, and so did Eleanor. She sold off her interests and sought a new path. Tired of the perpetual nightlife of the gaming tables, she made an unlikely attempt at respectability: buying a ranch outside Carson City, Nevada. Though Eleanor knew almost nothing about cattle or farming, the prospect of a quiet ranch life appealed to her—perhaps a chance, finally, to be something other than “Madame” Dumont.

     On the ranch, loneliness soon set in. Thus entered Jack McKnight, a dashing gentleman (at least in appearance) who swept the 30-something Eleanor off her feet. McKnight claimed to be a wealthy cattle buyer and lavished attention on her. The independent Madame Dumont fell in love for the first time on record. Unfortunately, her prince was a con artist of the first order. Within a few weeks, he vanished – and so did Eleanor’s hard-earned fortune. The smooth-talking scoundrel sold the ranch out from under her and absconded with the cash, leaving her saddled with debts. It was a classic frontier swindle, leaving Eleanor heartbroken, humiliated, and nearly destitute.

     But Eleanor Dumont was never a woman who folded her hand without a fight. According to legend, she tracked the treacherous McKnight down in revenge. When she finally confronted him, she leveled a double-barreled shotgun and fired, killing him on the spot. In the lawless ethos of the Old West, such vigilante justice wasn’t unheard of – but it still raised eyebrows. Authorities suspected her in McKnight’s demise but did not file charges due to lack of witnesses. Eleanor denied it at the time (with a coy smile, one imagines), though years later, she supposedly confessed to a friend that she had delivered frontier justice to the man who wronged her.

     This episode, half tragic and half darkly comic, added to the Dumont legend. It also left her back where she started – alone and broke, with nothing but her wits and skills to rely on. So, shotgun smoke barely cleared, Madame Dumont returned to the only trade she truly knew: gambling. In 1861, she popped up in the rowdy silver camp of Pioche, Nevada, again dealing cards to make a living. Any dreams of domestic tranquility were gone; the rest of her life would be spent on the move, chasing the next boomtown and a fresh bankroll.

     For the next two decades, Madame Dumont became a true nomad of the Wild West, drifting from one mining rush to another. Whenever prospectors struck gold or silver, she would arrive on the scene, a familiar figure to veteran prospectors who had seen her before in other camps. She ran gambling tables in Montana (Bannack, Helena, Fort Benton), in Idaho (Salmon, Silver City), in Utah (Corinne), all over Nevada (Pioche, Eureka, even fabled Virginia City), down to the Dakota Territory (the gold strike in Deadwood), and Arizona (lawless Tombstone). The very names of these towns tell the story of the Western frontier’s boom-and-bust cycle – and Eleanore Dumont was there for each new boom, a resilient woman making a living on the razor’s edge of fortune.

     In the early years of this rambling life, she still cultivated her ladylike persona. She dressed fashionably, upheld an image of virtue, and expected the rough men around her to mind their manners. Remarkably, many did. Miners who might start bar fights on a whim would check their profanity when Madame Dumont was dealing and tip their hats to her as if she were high society. Her very presence could calm a drunken brawl. One account from Pioche tells how, when a group of miners began waving pistols and threatening a fight, Madame Dumont waltzed right into the midst of them. With a disarming laugh, she chided them for their “ungallant conduct” – shaming the lot of them into backing down without a single shot fired. Such was the paradox of Eleanor Dumont: she wielded no official authority yet commanded respect in places where law enforcement officers struggled to keep order.   

     Over time, however, the harsh realities of frontier life took their toll. As she moved into her forties, Eleanore grew heavier in build, and that once-dainty shadow on her upper lip darkened into the visible “mustache” that would define her legend. The bloom of youth faded, and with it went some of her ability to charm the rowdies into behaving. Rough miners gradually stopped treating her with the chivalry they once had; coarse jokes and oaths returned to her card tables, and she eventually grew coarse along with them. She traded champagne for whiskey and ladylike, demure smiles for salty language. Madame Dumont could curse and guzzle bourbon with the best of the boys by the late 1860s, blending in as a hardened “character” of the mining camps rather than a genteel novelty.

     Yet, even as she transformed into a grittier persona, her name still drew a crowd. Many remembered the glamorous Madame from earlier days, and newcomers were curious to see the famous female gambler. She maintained a reputation for honest play – something valued in the crooked world of gambling. Rival male gamblers, jealous of the customers she attracted, occasionally spread rumors that she cheated at cards.       But by most accounts, she dealt a square game. She paid winners fairly and always honored her debts, which earned the loyalty of miners who trusted her more than some fly-by-night cardsharp. Ever generous, she was even known to lend broke miners a few dollars of “grub stake” so they could rejoin a game – an investment in keeping business going.

     As the frontier evolved, more women came west – miners brought wives, dance-hall girls, and prostitutes proliferated – and Eleanor was no longer one of a kind. To adapt, she diversified her enterprises. In several towns, she assumed the role of a true “Madame” in the bordello sense, opening modest brothels alongside her gambling rooms. By running a house of prostitution (often hiring younger, attractive women as the main draw), Eleanor regained some of the matronly prestige and income that her fading looks no longer provided at the card table. It was a pragmatic, if morally gray, career shift.

     Those who had known her in the virtuous Nevada City days might have been surprised, but, above all, Madame Mustache was a survivor. If dealing cards alone couldn’t pay the bills, she would unapologetically deal in other “services” the frontier demanded.

     Around the gold strike in Bannack, Montana, in the early 1860s, Eleanore Dumont gained the nickname that would stick with her forever—one evening, a drunken miner, emboldened by whiskey, blurted out the name “Madame Mustache” about the lady dealer’s faint mustache-like line of dark hair. Gasps no doubt followed, but that incident coined the moniker. Though few were foolish enough to call her Madame Mustache to her face (Eleanore could handle a pistol and had a fierce temper when provoked), the nickname spread behind her back and in the newspapers. Soon, her patrons were as likely to say they would play cards with “Madame Mustache” as with Madame Dumont.

     Eleanor may not have loved the teasing name, but she seems to have accepted it as part of her legend – even signing an occasional letter or note with the nickname in jest, according to some accounts.

     Stories about Madame Mustache’s escapades became frontier lore. In one famous tale, bandits attempted to rob her after a successful night at the gambling table. As she walked home alone, two men with pistols demanded her purse. Madame Dumont responded with cool disdain – and a surprise. She informed the robbers she would not be surrendering her money, then calmly reached under her skirt, pulled out a hidden derringer pistol, and shot one bandit point-blank. The other thief wisely fled into the darkness, no doubt shocked that a middle-aged lady in a bonnet had outgunned them.

     On another occasion in Montana, when a smallpox-infected riverboat tried to dock at Fort Benton, it was Eleanor Dumont who grabbed two revolvers and stood on the levee, threatening to shoot if the crew came ashore. Not even the threat of deadly disease could intimidate her; thanks to her audacity, the boat moved on, sparing the town an outbreak. These anecdotes – equal parts of Wild West drama and gallows humor – cemented her status as a larger-than-life figure.

     By the mid-1870s, Deadwood in the Black Hills was the new boom town, and Madame Mustache also appeared there. Legend has it she befriended the infamous Calamity Jane and tried (unsuccessfully) to teach her poker. A Deadwood newspaper in 1877 gave a fond description of Madame Mustache holding court at the card table: “a plump little French lady, perhaps forty years of age, but splendidly preserved… She derives her name from a dainty strip of black hair upon her upper lip. She deals her own game and is quite popular with the boys … She has bright black eyes and a musical voice … There is something attractive about her as she looks up with a little smile and says, ‘You will play, m’sieur?’”. The reporter noted that no one knew her whole story – by then, she was a mystery woman – but rumor had it that she was very wealthy. In truth, her fortunes had risen and fallen so many times that it’s hard to say if Madame Dumont was rich or broke on any given day. What never wavered was her determination to survive on her terms in a man’s world.

     As the 1870s neared their end, Eleanor Dumont was in her late forties and still chasing the boomtowns. She headed south to Tombstone, Arizona, that notorious silver camp, around 1878. By now, her youthful beauty had faded, but those who underestimated her were quickly corrected – Eleanor remained a formidable and enterprising woman. In Tombstone, Eleanor opened a rival brothel to the famous establishment run by “Blonde Marie.” Madame Mustache could no longer rely on her allure to draw clientele, so she hired a stable of pretty young women and became their manager. Ever the show-woman, she didn’t advertise in newspapers; instead, she paraded her girls in an elegant carriage down Allen Street.

     Townsfolk would see the spectacle of Madame Mustache, dressed in her finest with a cigar between her teeth, proudly sitting among her bedecked girls as the carriage rolled by. She would grin and nod to the gentlemen on the boardwalks, acknowledging the tips of their hats with the confidence of a seasoned queen. It was a savvy marketing ploy and a last flash of the old Dumont flair. Even in a place as rowdy as Tombstone, this undaunted Frenchwoman puffing a cigar in broad daylight turned heads and added to local lore.

     After Tombstone, Bodie, California beckoned. Bodie was a high-altitude gold strike town in the Sierra Nevada, infamous for lawlessness and wealth – an ideal final stage for Eleanor’s wandering life. She arrived in Bodie in the spring of 1878. A local reporter noted that “probably no woman on the Coast is better known… She appears as young as ever, and those who knew her many years ago would instantly recognize her now”.

     Perhaps it was polite flattery; by this time, Madame Mustache was nearly 50. Still, she set up shop dealing twenty-one and faro in Bodie’s saloons, just as she had done for decades. Locals were thrilled to boast that their town had attracted the famous Madame Mustache. For a short while, it seemed like another prosperous chapter might unfold.

     But fortune, ever fickle, finally deserted Madame Dumont in Bodie. In September 1879, after about a year in town, her luck ran dry at the gaming table. One fateful night, she found herself with an empty bank (the pot of money needed to cover bets). Desperate to keep her game going, she borrowed $300 from a friend to stake a new round. It was a hefty loan – and she lost it all almost immediately.

     This setback might have been the last straw for Eleanor, who had lived her life proud and self-reliant. Without saying a word to anyone, she quietly walked away from the saloon, out beyond the edge of town into the barren hills. There, Madame Mustache took her final, tragic action. She sat down, poured herself a glass of red wine laced with a lethal dose of morphine, and drank it.

     On the morning of September 8, 1879, a sheep herder on the road discovered her lifeless body, her head resting peacefully on a stone. By her side lay an empty bottle of laudanum (liquid morphine) and a poignant letter addressed to the town authorities. In that final note, the hardened gambler who had seen and done it all wrote that she was “tired of life.”

     The death of Madame Mustache sent ripples of sadness and sensation across the West. Bodie’s newspapers reported the suicide with a tone of respect, if not surprise. One account observed that her history was “but a repetition of that of many others who have followed the life of a female gambler,” except that Eleanor Dumont had maintained a character for virtue that few in her line of work ever did.

     By her instructions, sympathetic women of Bodie prepared her body for burial, and they laid her to rest in the town cemetery. No one marked her gravesite, and its location remains unknown, adding another layer of mystery to her story.

     The telegraph wires carried news of her demise to far-flung mining camps where old-timers who remembered the glamorous Madame Dumont of 20 years past must have bowed their heads.

     Thus ended the life of Eleanor “Madame Mustache” Dumont – a life that truly belonged to the Old West. From the bustling saloons of Gold Rush San Francisco to the ramshackle tents of Deadwood, she had played every card life dealt her with audacity. She was a woman who dared to gamble in a man’s world at a time when few others did. She won and lost fortunes, reveled in admiration and endured slanders, disarmed gun-toting roughnecks with a ladylike wink, and even meted out justice from the barrel of a shotgun.

     Her tale is rich with humor and drama: the image of that refined lady pulling a derringer on a robber or puffing a cigar in a stagecoach full of dance-hall girls could come straight from a dime novel – except it happened. Yet her story also carries the weight of tragedy, as the independent Madame Mustache ultimately died alone on a cold hillside, exhausted by the very life that had made her famous.

     Eleanor Dumont’s legacy lives on in the annals of Western lore. Madame Mustache’s nickname may sound like a punchline, but behind it lies the story of a fearless, enterprising woman who forged her destiny with the odds against her. In an age of boom or bust, she lived by her wits and her cards, proving that a woman could deal herself a winning hand – at least for a while – amid the roughest men of the frontier.

     Her life was a high-stakes adventure, and like any good gambler, she left the world wanting to hear just one more story about that bejeweled French lady with a pistol in her petticoat and a twinkle in her eye.