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             Much has been written about the wages of sin paid by the ever-present madams and prostitutes of early gold rush mining camps. Indeed, historical research frequently reveals sordid stories of booze and drugs, murders and.suicides.

            Some of those sad tales were related by Estelline Bennett who wrote of her experiences as a little girl growing up in Deadwood in the late 1800s. But Bennett also related some of the brighter moments in the lives of frail sisters of sin who inhabited badlands brothels.

“Deadwood was a wide-open, careless, happy-go-lucky town,” Bennett said. “The Gem Theater, the dance halls, saloons, and gambling houses were its very life.”

            Obviously not all the girls of the gulch were drabs, or as rough in appearance as the notorious Calamity Jane, once described by a frank-speaking cowboy as looking like “a busted bale of hay.”  Nor were they always scantily clad in revealing working costumes.

 “A cowboy who rode
riotously into Deadwood
could find the brand of
his own cows on that gown.”

In Old Deadwood Days, Bennett described in detail a dress designed for a masked ball at Al Swearengen’s disreputable Gem Theater where female performers were required to “work the boxes” to entertain male patrons in privacy, behind the closed curtains of cubicles overlooking the bar and dance floor.

             Their masked balls were famous for the ingenuity of the costumes. Just by accident I saw one of the most bizarre of them all, the “cattle-brand dress.” I would have tried it on but my mother wouldn’t let me. Mother and I had gone down to Seebick’s to see about a dress she was having made and he showed us the costume. It had been made in Chicago and he was finishing some slight alterations. The gown was of heavy black satin with a wide skirt that swept the floor all around and was finished with a lavish double ruffle. The little basque was tightly fitted, very low in the neck, and had short puffed sleeves. But the distinctive thing about it was the rich embroidery of cattle brands interspersed with roses, that covered the entire gown—wide skirt, little basque, short sleeves, and everything. It was very heavy embroidery and gorgeous with all the shades of red, blue, green, and purple. Not a cowboy who rode riotously into Deadwood and found his way to the Gem, nor a cattleman looking for a little diversion when he came to town, but could find the brand of his own cows on that gown. Mr. Seebick said it cost, with the perky little hat that went with it, more than four hundred dollars.

 Sin must have paid pretty good wages in the early days of Deadwood Gulch.