English poker and faro player (1851–1930)
Alice Ivers Duffield Tubbs Huckert (February
17, 1851 – February 27, 1930), better known as 🤶 Poker Alice, Poker Alice Ivers or Poker
Alice Tubbs, was an English poker[1][2] and faro player[3][4] in the American West.
Her
🤶 family moved from Devon, England, where she was born, to Virginia, United States, where
she was reared and educated. As 🤶 an adult, Ivers moved to Leadville, Colorado, where she
met her first husband, Frank Duffield. He got Ivers interested in 🤶 poker, but he was
killed a few years after they married. Ivers made a name for herself by winning money
🤶 from poker games in places like Silver City, New Mexico, and even working at a saloon
in Creede, Colorado, that 🤶 was owned by Bob Ford, the man who killed Jesse
James.[5]
Early life [ edit ]
"Poker" Alice Ivers was born in 🤶 England,[6][7] to Irish
immigrants. Her family moved to Virginia when Alice was twelve. As a young woman, she
went to 🤶 boarding school in Virginia to become a refined lady. While in her late teens,
her family moved to Leadville, a 🤶 city in the then Colorado Territory.[8]
Personal life
[ edit ]
Poker Alice, early photo
It was in Leadville that Alice met Frank 🤶 Duffield,
whom she married[6] at a young age. Frank Duffield was a mining engineer who played
poker in his spare 🤶 time.[7] After just a few years of marriage, Duffield was killed in
an accident[7] while resetting a dynamite charge in 🤶 a Leadville mine.[9]
Ivers was
known for splurging her winnings, as when she won a lot of money in Silver City 🤶 and
spent it all in New York. After all of her big wins, she would travel to New York and
🤶 spend her money on clothes. She was very keen on keeping up with the latest fashions
and would buy dresses 🤶 to wear to play poker, partly as a business investment to
distract her opponents.[9]
Alice met her next husband around 1890[6] 🤶 when she was a
dealer in Bedrock Tom's saloon in Deadwood,[8] South Dakota. When a drunken miner tried
to attack 🤶 her fellow dealer Warren G. Tubbs with a knife, Alice threatened him with her
.38.[10] After this incident, Tubbs and 🤶 Ivers started a romance and were married soon
after.[8]
Some sources report Alice and Warren had seven children together,[11][12]
other sources 🤶 report they did not have any children together, but Alice brought two
children into the marriage, a daughter and a 🤶 son, giving Warren two stepchildren.[13]
Her son, George, who would take on the Tubbs name. In 1934, George would be 🤶 saved from
a train, after he was found lying on the tracks. Two women were able to pull him to
🤶 safety just in time to save his life. At the time of the incident, he was 65 years old,
putting 🤶 his birth around 1868.[14]
Warren was a painter by trade, and it was speculated
that through his work, he contracted tuberculosis. 🤶 For the last years of Warren's life,
Alice tried to help him regain his health. A few months before Warren 🤶 died, Alice moved
him to a ranch on the Moreau River, 100 miles from Sturgis. It was there that Warren
🤶 died on December 31, 1909.[15][16][17]
To secure a proper burial and funeral, Alice
wrapped Warren's body in blankets, placed him in 🤶 their lumber wagon, and with her team
of horses, traveled to Sturgis. It would take Alice four days to travel 🤶 along the snow
covered trails to the city of Sturgis, where she was able to arrange for a funeral for
🤶 Warren. In order to pay off the funeral costs, Alice would travel to Rapid City, where
she worked as a 🤶 bartender for Black Nell in Nell's resort.[18]
Alice's third husband
was George Huckert,[10] who worked on her homestead taking care of 🤶 the sheep.[19]
Huckert was constantly proposing to Ivers. Eventually, Ivers owed HuckertR$1,008, so
she married him, figuring that it would 🤶 be cheaper than paying his back wages.[10]
Huckert died on October 12, 1924.[20]
Poker career [ edit ]
After the death of 🤶 her
first husband, Alice started to play poker seriously.[7] Alice was in a tough financial
position. After failing in a 🤶 few different jobs including teaching, she turned to poker
to support herself financially.[19] Alice would make money by gambling and 🤶 working as a
dealer. Ivers made a name for herself by winning money from poker games.[7] By the time
Ivers 🤶 was given the name "Poker Alice,"[8] she was drawing in large crowds to watch her
play and men were constantly 🤶 challenging her to play. Saloon owners liked that Ivers
was a respectable woman who kept to her values. These values 🤶 included her refusal to
play poker on Sundays.[10]
As her reputation grew, so did the amount of money she was
making. 🤶 Some nights she would even makeR$6,000,[10] an incredibly large sum of money at
the time. Alice claimed that she wonR$250,000, 🤶 which would now be worth more than three
million dollars.
Ivers used her good looks to distract men at the poker 🤶 table. She
always had the newest dresses,[9] and even in her 50s was considered a very attractive
woman. She was 🤶 also very good at counting cards and figuring odds, which helped her at
the table.[21]
Alice was known always to have 🤶 carried a gun with her, preferably her
.38, and frequently smoked cigars.[22]
Poker's Palace and jail time [ edit ]
After
Warren 🤶 Tubbs death, Alice eventually purchased a building which sat on the south side
of Bear Butte Creek, between the city 🤶 of Sturgis and Fort Meade, South Dakota, where
the current Sturgis City Park now stands.[23] "Poker Alice's" resort, as it 🤶 was
commonly known,[24] gained notoriety in 1913 due a confrontation between soldiers of
Troop K, stationed at Fort Meade, and 🤶 Alice herself.
Trouble had initially developed
between the soldiers and Alice in the early part of July, 1913, a little over 🤶 a week
before the shooting. Later that week, the trouble was rekindled, and finally once again
on Monday, July 14.[25] 🤶 Around 10:30pm, five soldiers of Troop K, accompanied by a
number of members of the South Dakota guard, which had 🤶 recently been stationed at Fort
Meade, went to Alice's resort for the intention of starting a "rough house." After the
🤶 soldiers were refused admittance, they began throwing stones through the windows of
Alice's resort and cutting telephone and electric wires. 🤶 In response, Alice opened
fire, landing five shots. One struck a Private Fred Koetzle of Troop K in the head, 🤶 and
around midnight, he died from the wound.[26] Another soldier, 22-year-old Joseph C.
Miner was also shot, with the bullet 🤶 passing three inches above his heart. While he was
initially expected to also die from his wounds, he would later 🤶 recover.[27] Three other
individuals were also struck, including a civilian.[28]
Immediately following the
shooting, police, the sheriff and his deputies arrived 🤶 at the scene. Alice, along with
six of her girls would be placed under arrest, and sent to the county 🤶 jail.[29] No
charges would be filed by State's Attorney Gray of Meade county against Alice, for the
shooting and subsequent 🤶 death of Private Koetzle. After investigating the facts of that
night, it was determined that Alice was justified in the 🤶 shooting as she was defending,
or attempting to defend, her personal property. However, she was charged with keeping a
house 🤶 of "illfame," and her six girls, Jennie Palmer, Bessie Brundidge, Ann Carr,
Birdie Harris, Mabel Smith, and Edith Brown, were 🤶 convicted of frequenting a house of
"illfame."[30]
Two years later, another confrontation at Poker Alice's resort led to
the shooting of 🤶 several soldiers, and one civilian. Private Cadwell was shot in the
abdominal region, Private Wood in the neck, and an 🤶 unnamed civilian in the arm. The
incident was written off simply as a "booze" fight.[31]
Alice continued to have run-ins
with 🤶 the law, culminating in the 1920s. In 1924, her resort was raided for
bootlegging.[32] The following year, her resort was 🤶 raided, possibly for the last time,
and Alice was charged and convicted of operating a house of prostitution.[33]
In 1928,
facing 🤶 time in the state penitentiary for her convictions of bootlegging and running a
house of prostitution, Alice's community came together 🤶 to petition the governor to
grant her a pardon. The claim made was that Alice was in poor health, and 🤶 confinement
to prison could be fatal for her. Hundreds signed the petition.[34] On December 20,
1928, the pardon was granted 🤶 by then Governor William J. Bulow.[35]
Death [ edit
]
After being pardoned by then Governor William J. Bulow, Poker Alice appears 🤶 to have
retired. No future run-ins with the law would be reported.
On Thursday, February 6,
1930, Alice underwent a gallbladder 🤶 operation in Rapid City. There was a general fear
that recovery would be difficult due to her advanced age; however, 🤶 just two days later,
it appeared that Alice was recovering speedily and it appeared as if she would be able
🤶 to return home before long.[36] Her recovery continued to appear to be progressing, but
her doctors did warn that there 🤶 was no surety she was out of danger.[37] On February
27, 1930, Alice died.[38]
Funeral services would be held for Alice 🤶 on March 1, 1930, at
the St. Aloysius Cemetery in Sturgis, South Dakota. Father Columban, of the Catholic
Church, gave 🤶 a sermon at her grave.[39]
Alice left one final surprise: when her will
was read, it was revealed that Alice had 🤶 disinherited her relatives for not paying
attention to her in her declining years; instead, she divided her estate among her
🤶 friends.[40][41]
Legacy [ edit ]
Comic book loosely based on Ivers' life
