Prostitution Opens the Door to Entrepreneurship for Women  

MATTIE SILKS SPORTS DENVER 

Monika Mullins | Colorado History | October 3, 2017

Early in Colorado’s history, it was very unheard of for women to really take on a role other than being a stay at home wife. Women have always been expected to stay at home and pursue all the hard tasks including washing clothes, cooking, sewing and many more tasks. It also had been beyond heard of a woman being able to make her own money and owning her very own property. In the 18th century, it finally seemed for women to pursue their own independence. Women like Mattie Silks and Jennie Rodgers prove this possible by pursuing their own business ventures brothel houses. Mattie Silk’s lively hood of being a madam during the 18th and 19th century helped make women being an entrepreneur a respectful thing in Colorado.   

Much of Mattie Silk’s entrepreneurship pursuit is explained in a variety of sources. One of those sources is an article featured in Hell’s Belles “Mattie Silks and Jennie Rodgers: Queens of the Denver Row” which is a very extensive version of Mattie Silks life a Madam. Another source is Six Racy Madams of Colorado by Caroline Bancroft with an article “Mattie Silks of Denver” to help glamorize Silk’s life. In a much darker light Jerks in Colorado History, Phyllis J. Perry presents a chapter “Jennie Rodgers and Mattie Silks” that really dramatizes all the bad things Silks has pursued alongside her business venture as a madam. A newspaper article “Gored to Death” in the Colorado Daily Chieftain shows one of the many issues Mattie Silk had to deal with.  

On that note, not all history can be summed up into words. Being the 18th century some of the primary sources that can be experienced are pictures. One of the images found was Mattie Silks on her horse which really elaborated on her gambling problem. Another image is of the marketplace that makes it easier for one to picture how Denver was for the girls in the 18th and 19th century. 

The most elaborate piece of writing that attempts to showcase Mattie Silks as a “notorious Colorado madam” and “savvy business-person” (Seacrest) Hell’s Belles article “Mattie Silks and Jennie Rodgers: Queens of the Denver Row” written by Clark Seacrest. When one thinks of a business person the first thing they think of is numbers. Well, that is true here with the elaboration of Silks business plan of the girls paying 5 dollars a week and splitting at least half of the profit with the house and having to buy clothes under her just to create a power trip. There were also all the things that the madam had to do such as pay for everything, hire people to do things around the boarding house and obtain the liquor license. Unlike other women, Silks would pursue all of this with no pressure to go on to be successful. 

Silks moved to Denver in 1877 and from there went onto to buy her 1st place of business which was $13,000. Later to be known as the Nellie French house. Eventually Silks grows tired of that property and buys another building on Market street for $14,000. A line in the Hell’s Belles book “She prospered and continued to invest in one property and then another” (Seacrest) emphasizes that she was investing. Investing that attributed to how much she had to be thriving from her business to continue to move through multiple properties. If her business wasn’t thriving there wouldn’t have been money to keep moving forward. 

Continuing, Silks still pursued relationships regardless of being in the sporting business. Including supporting her second husband Cort Thompson all the way to his death. Being a ruthless business-woman, one would not think that Mattie Silks would put up with a man who gambled and beat her. Yet she did for a good amount of years before catching Cort cheating on her with a woman named Lillie. Secrest shines light on this matter by overstating “Mattie sued Cort for divorce charging that he was a drunk, a wife beater, and philanderer and that he been living with Lillie Dab for six months and with other women at various times” (Seacrest) how Mattie was beaten by her husband. This just sums up how important it was for Mattie to be able to support herself through her business. Also, how tough she was going forward with her entrepreneurship.  

In Colorado, Mattie made more of a stance in being noticed than other places she had lived by always being featured in the Rocky Mountain News. Either herself or her Market Street bordello. In Silks, early days she was a bit of a drinker and gambler who got a little out of hands-on times. Including one time where she fought over her former husband Cort Thomas with Kate Fulton. Bancroft makes Silks out to be very defiant in Six Racy Madams of Colorado stating, “At an outing in the Denver Park, outside the city limits, the women shot and missed at each other” (Bancroft). Making it out to seem like Mattie Silks does not let anyone get in her way. This later will help contribute to a lot of western books making Mattie and Kate’s duel to be the womanliest story of gun shooting ever written. 

To get into the actual work of Mattie Silks, she ran her brothel house in a high-end matter. Matter of fact Mattie ran such a high-end bordello that she was hardly ever bothered to deal with police who could possibly arrest the girls for various reasons. Secrest makes prostitution in Denver sound very glamorous “In Denver as elsewhere, the denizens of the parlor houses had to be of the highest class, beautiful, and ideally, of some cultural or educational accomplishment” (Seacrest). Parlors and prostitution were starting to be taken seriously as a business. The girls kept business booming as well pursuing tricks to make sure that men would come and go to keep the money coming. 

It should be noted that even though all the girls had the freedom to pursue their own means of money didn’t mean they were happy. In the Colorado Day Chieftain, it exclaims that one of Mattie’s girls took their life “Mattie Woods committed suicide in Mattie Silks house of ill fame, by taking chloroform” (Gord to Death-Suicide). With no background to back it up, it can only be assumed why women weren’t substantial with their life including a bad life experience or being in debt. It seems selfish after Mattie has provided this place of business for these girls to work and have a good meal to have done something like that there.  

Eventually, all greats come to an end someday Mattie Silks died in 1929. Phillis Perry concludes Silks life as it was “Shewed businesswomen who sometimes acted like jerks… Mattie silks, used cons, pistols, and bribes to survive as Denver Madams.” (Perry). Mattie Silks did what she had to push her own agenda of running a successful brothel house and it wasn’t all pretty. Interesting enough Mattie had chosen to be buried next to her second husband Thompson instead of her current husband meaning maybe he had been her true love after all they had been through.  

Mattie Silks life comes to us through a series of sources both literature and photographically that only begin to tell how she managed to pursue her own business venture of being a madam. Especially in a place like Colorado that would later decide to vote for prohibition. Silks will be remembered for starting the way of life for women to go on to be their own boss. In Colorado History, she contributed so much from pursuing a successful brothel house to providing great stories to be made in western and making the other stories of other lesser successful women come to light during this time. 

Bibliography 

Bancroft, Caroline. Six Racy Madams of Colorado. Sixteenth Printing, 1965. (Secondary Source. Used to talk about how Mattie Silks life was portrayed.) 

Colorado History Newspapers. 1 October 2017. (Primary Source. Showed a newspaper article) 

Digital Denver Library. 3 October 2017. Picture. (Primary Source. Showed a picture of main street) 

“Gord to Death-Suicide.” Colorado Daily Chieftain n.d. (Primary Source. Talk about a suicide that happened) 

Perry, Phillis. Jerks in Colorado History. Guilford: Morris Book Publishing, 2011. (Secondary source. Show a different perspective of Mattie.) 

Roberts, Jason. Mattie Silks. 1 October 2017. (Primary source. Grave Photo) 

Seacrest, Clark. Hell’s Belles. Boulder: University Press of Colorado, 2002 . (Secondary Source. Used to talk about most of Mattie’s life experiences.)