Kitty Leroy – Lady Gambler & Gunfighter
Drawing by Wane Guard in a story about Kitty Leroy. Image from Genealogy Images of History.
A gunfighter, gambler, performer, and allegedprostitute, Kitty Leroy, born in 1850, was best known as one of the most proficient poker players in theOld West. Thought to have been fromMichigan, she was performing as a dancer by the age of ten. As she got older, she began working in dance halls and saloons, where she picked up several other skills, specifically proficiency with weapons andgames of chance.
When she married her first husband, legend has it that he was the only man in town with the nerve to let her shoot apples off his head. But Kitty was restless and wanted to take her “show” on the road, so she headed to Texas, leaving her husband behind.
By the age of 20, she was said to have been one of the most popular entertainers in Dallas, Texas. However, she soon gave up dancing to become a faro dealer and was noted for never going to the faro tables without several knives and revolvers.
Her skills with weapons and gambling proficiency became legendary, as did her mode of dress, which ranged from dressing like a man to extravagant gypsy-like attire. While in Texas, she acquired a second husband, and the two soon headed toCalifornia.
A third marriage apparently took place somewhere along the line, a man she was said to have married due to a guilty conscience. In this incident, the story tells us that when the man became too ardent in his affections for her, she challenged him to a fight. She donned men’s clothing when he refused to fight a woman and rechallenged him. She then allegedly shot him and, as he lay wounded, called for a preacher and married him before he died.
Deadwood from Mt. Moriah in 1888.
When the Black Hills gold rush began inSouth Dakota, Kitty made her way to the thriving boomtown ofDeadwood, arriving on the same wagon train that broughtWild Bill Hickok andCalamity Jane to the camp in 1876.
She soon opened the Mint Gambling Saloon, where she met her fourth husband, a German prospector who made a rich gold strike. However, when the Germans’ gold ran out, so did Kitty’s interest. She was then said to have hit him over the head with a bottle before kicking him out of their home and her life.
On June 11, 1877, Kitty married her fifth husband, Samuel R. Curley, in Deadwood. But, for Kitty, this would be a fatal mistake. Curley was a jealous man, and after numerous arguments over alleged affairs with a former husband and others, such asWild Bill Hickok andSam Bass, he killed her on December 7, 1877, in the Lone Star Saloon before turning the gun on himself. The following day, the townspeople allegedly laid out the pair for viewing inside the saloon before they were buried together.
A journalist later said of the 28-year-old that she “had five husbands, seven revolvers, a dozen Bowie knives, and always went armed to the teeth.”
There is no evidence that Kitty was a prostitute, but as many of the Deadwood saloons offered those “services,” she may very well have been a “madam.”
She had a daughter somewhere along the line, as Deadwood newspapers of the time indicate that her estate was left to her daughter.
©Kathy Alexander/Legends of America, updated June 2025.
Postcard, Deadwood 1876.
Also See:
Calamity Jane – Rowdy Woman of the West
Wild Bill Hickok & The Dead Man’s Hand
See Sources.