The Old West Petticoat Dealer “Madame Mustache”

Gambling

Eleanore Dumont, known as “The Frontier Gambling Saloons in Madame Mustache,” was a young petticoat dealer who became a “superstar” when she became a “super star” at twenty-one on the Gambler’s gypsy circuit. The West.

There is talk about Dumont’s birthplace; Some say that she was a French born immigrant named Simone Jules while others say she was born in New Orleans around 1829. What is known is that Madame Simone Jules rolled into San Francisco’s Bella Union Saloon and Gambling Hall in the spring of 1850, Over a roulette table, and created a major sensation. Forty-niners, a beautiful woman of a mere glimpse for the hungry were staggered by a young Frenchwoman with creamy alabaster skin, shinning black eyes, a flirtatious smile, and long dark tresses that fell to her shoulders. Within a few days men were standing in line to lose their gold dust to a demure mademoiselle that showed very close inspection of a thin line of downy hair on her upper lip link nhà cái.

The Bella Union was a packed night and day with players eager to see or play against the Marvelous Madame Jules. Not to be outdone the other gambling halls are soon over imported French women with their roulette wheels. Over the next few years, Portsmouth Square will be the site of most of the gambling operations for women croupiers or dealers. Then she appeared as Madame Jules disappeared from the scene and her name was not mentioned in any records or newspaper reports.

Several years later in 1854, a stagecoach rolled onto the dusty streets of Nevada City, California, and a well-rounded young woman emerged. Dressed in fine Parisian clothes and expensive jewelery, the whole city was set on its ear by the mysterious raven-haired French woman that descended from the coach. She was small and dainty, with doe-like eyes, a mane of curly dark hair, and just a slight hint of diaphanous down on her upper lip. She said her name was Madame Eleanore Dumont and nothing about her past – an inscrutable woman of mystery.

Satisfied with her transformation to Madame Dumont the Gambling vixen rented a place in the center of town and hungry for a sign naming her establishment, the “Vingt-Et-Un” (French for “twenty-one”). Citizens all over town received invitations to visit Madame Dumont with a game of Broad Street and enjoy. Though there were over a dozen gambling halls in Nevada City, the Vingt-Et-Un was the undisputed queen’s sporting crowd. Twenty-one was Dumont’s game of choice and she was a master at the game, sweetly expressing regret as her winnings in the rack. When she closes her table, she will order the bottles of champagne to treat the losers, leading most miners to say “they would rather lose the Madame than win somebody else.”

Miners and townsfolk flocked to the establishment, drawn by both the attraction of winning money and the charisma and wit of the French hostess. Decorum was strictly enforced, customers could not engage in brawling or using vulgar language; Strangely enough, the rough crowd of miners found it impossible to resist the tantalizing owner of polite requests. In a very short time, she moved to her operation where she had large quarters where she added faro, chuck-a-luck, roulette tables, and a staff of dealers. She called her new gambling hall the Dumont Palace and hired a Nevada City gambler named Dave Tobin to be her manager-partner.

Then over the next two years, the money rolled in on a daily basis, so much so that Tobin, who had moved in with Dumont at the National Hotel, wanted to take control of the operation. When he tried to make his move Dumont flew into a rage – just because they shared a bed and made him his boss’s outfit. She gave him an ultimatum; If he didn’t like the arrangement then “get the hell out.” A final settlement after he so slipped out of Nevada City and headed east.

When the gold in Nevada City finally ran dry, Eleanore sold her operation and began a tour of other mining camps in northern California. She opened her game at the Yuba River settlements at Bullard’s Bar, Downieville, and Sierra City; Then move on to Mining Camps on the Feather River and later the Klamath. In 1857 she dealt with twenty-one in George Foster’s City Hotel in Columbia more than a year before she moved to Virginia City where she managed a swanky joint that boasted furnishings valued at over $ 30,000. It was during this series of California mining camps that she added “extras” to her table operations – a visit to her boudoir requiring a “room charge.”

Dumont left for the Gold Strikes in Idaho and Montana in the early 1860s and by the end of her tour, she was approaching her thirtieth birthday. The passing years have not been kind to her; The long nights of cards and debauchery begin to take its toll, and her once-legendary.