Elizabeth Thompson (born Mary Elizabeth Haley; 18 October 1855 – 13 April 1953) was a prostitute and dance hall girl who worked in

Dodge City, Kansas Dodge City is the county seat of Ford County, Kansas, United States, named after nearby Fort Dodge. As of the 2020 census, the population of the city was 27,788. The city is famous in American culture for its history as a wild frontier to ...

and other frontier cattle towns during the 1870s. She later became famous as Squirrel Tooth Alice, madam of a

brothel A brothel, bordello, ranch, or whorehouse is a place where people engage in sexual activity with prostitutes. However, for legal or cultural reasons, establishments often describe themselves as massage parlors, bars, strip clubs, body rub p ...

Sweetwater, Texas Sweetwater is a municipality in and the seat of Nolan County, Texas, United States. It is 123 miles southeast of Lubbock and 40 miles west of Abilene, Texas. Its population was 10,906 at the 2010 census. History The town's name "Sweetwater" is ...

Early life

Born Mary Elizabeth Haley in

Belton, Texas Belton is a city in the U.S. state of Texas on the Interstate 35 corridor between Austin and Waco. Belton is the county seat of Bell County and is the fifth largest city in the Killeen-Temple metropolitan area. In 2020, the population of Belto ...

, Haley had a difficult childhood. The family lost its fortune during the Civil War, and in 1864 Comanche Native Americans raided the Haley farm in Texas and took young Haley captive. She remained a captive until 1867 when her parents paid a ransom for her release. From this point forward, Haley was a marked woman. Even though she was only thirteen, many people assumed that she had sexually submitted to the

Indians Indian or Indians may refer to: Peoples South Asia * Indian people, people of Indian nationality, or people who have an Indian ancestor ** Non-resident Indian, a citizen of India who has temporarily emigrated to another country * South Asia ...

during her captivity. Haley found herself shunned and ostracized from society. She soon took up with an older man who did not care about her past, but James Haley found the idea of an older man taking advantage of his daughter so objectionable that he shot and killed the suitor. Haley's reputation was soiled even further.

Life as a prostitute in the Old West

At the age of fourteen, Haley ran away from home in search of a fresh start. She wound up in Abilene, Kansas, but a young woman alone had few options. So she became a dance hall girl and prostitute. In Abilene, she hooked up with a gambler and part-time cowboy named William "Texas Billy” Thompson, brother of the notorious Ben Thompson. In 1870, the couple left Kansas for Texas and for the next couple of years Billy punched cows along the Chisholm Trail while Haley continued working as a dance hall girl in various towns across the southern prairie. In 1872, at the age of seventeen, Haley was plying her trade in the cattle town of

Ellsworth, Kansas Ellsworth is a city in and the county seat of Ellsworth County, Kansas, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population of the city was 3,066. Known as a cow town in the 1870s, when the Kansas Pacific Railroad operated a stockyard here f ...

, while Billy worked the gambling halls. By the spring of 1873, however, the couple was back out on the prairie with a spring cattle drive. Haley bore her first child on the open prairie and, to make the child legitimate, she and Billy got married that year. In the summer of 1873, Billy Thompson, in a state of drunkenness, shot and killed Ellsworth town sheriff Chauncey Whitney. He was arrested but got the cattle company he worked for to bail him out. Because he was fearful of being shot himself by vengeful family members, Billy and Thompson ran. The couple wound up in Dodge City, where Billy gambled and Thompson worked as a dancer and prostitute. It was here that the Thompsons made the acquaintance of

Wyatt Earp Wyatt Berry Stapp Earp (March 19, 1848 – January 13, 1929) was an American lawman and gambler in the American West, including Dodge City, Deadwood, and Tombstone. Earp took part in the famous gunfight at the O.K. Corral, during which la ...

and his paramour,

Mattie Blaylock Celia Ann "Mattie" Blaylock (January 1850 – July 3, 1888) was a prostitute who became the romantic companion and common-law wife of Old West lawman and gambler Wyatt Earp for about six years. Knowledge of her place in Wyatt's life was conceale ...

. After Dodge City, the Thompsons drifted to

Colorado Colorado (, other variants) is a state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains, as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the wes ...

, but by 1876, they had moved to

, which became their permanent home. In Sweetwater, the couple purchased a ranch outside of town and a dance hall in town. Thompson ran the dance hall which was a front for a brothel. She was not embarrassed by her profession, and it was as a madam in Sweetwater that she became known for keeping her pet

prairie dog Prairie dogs (genus ''Cynomys'') are herbivorous burrowing ground squirrels native to the grasslands of North America. Within the genus are five species: black-tailed, white-tailed, Gunnison's, Utah, and Mexican prairie dogs. In Mexico ...

s. These, along with a gap in her teeth, gave her the sobriquet, "Squirrel Tooth Alice."

Later life

In 1897, after twenty-four years of marriage and nine children, Billy Thompson died of

consumption Consumption may refer to: *Resource consumption *Tuberculosis, an infectious disease, historically * Consumption (ecology), receipt of energy by consuming other organisms * Consumption (economics), the purchasing of newly produced goods for curre ...

. Libby Thompson continued running her Sweetwater brothel until she retired in 1921 at the age of 66. Although most of her sons had turned to crime and her daughters followed her into prostitution, she spent her elderly years living in

Palmdale, California Palmdale is a city in northern Los Angeles County in the U.S. state of California. The city lies in the Antelope Valley region of Southern California. The San Gabriel Mountains separate Palmdale from the Los Angeles Basin to the south. On Au ...

, among her various children's homes. On April 13, 1953, Libby Thompson died at the Sunbeam Rest Home in

Los Angeles, California Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the wo ...

, at the age of 97.

Early life

Life as a prostitute in the Old West

Later life

References

Further reading