EXCERPT FROM THE VIGILANTES OF MONTANA (c. 1860, by Thomas Dimsdale)

Though gold was mined in the United States as early as 1799, it was not until the great California Gold Rush of 1848 that it became a national preoccupation. After gold was discovered in Montana in the early 1860s, the state became notorious for its lawless, rowdy mining towns. Because such astronomical sums of money were being drawn from the earth, the towns quickly attracted businesses catering to the rough-and-tumble mining crowd: merchants, saloonkeepers, gamblers, and prostitutes.

This selection from Thomas Josiah Dimsdale's 1866 book, The Vigilantes of Montana, describes the fun to be had at the "Hurdy-Gurdy" house, where a dance with a professional girl could be purchased for a dollar in gold. The mining camps' preoccupation with the trappings of great wealth are apparent in the pains this author took to describe the elaborate, expensive costumes and habits of both the girls and their buccaneer partners. Though the author mentioned the "shooting scrapes" that resulted from "equal proportions of jealousy, whiskey and revenge," this selection is most interesting in its discussion of the economical opportunities afforded women of various cultures by the professional trade.

Leah R.Shafer,
Cornell University

See also Frontier ; Gold Mines and Mining ; Montana .

The absence of good female society, in any due proportion to the numbers of the opposite sex, is likewise an evil of great magnitude; for men become rough, stern and cruel, to a surprising degree, under such a state of things.

In every frequent street, public gambling houses with open doors and loud music, are resorted to, in broad daylight, by hundreds—it might almost be said—of all tribes and tongues, furnishing another fruitful source of "difficulties," which are commonly decided on the spot, by an appeal to brute force, the stab of a knife, or the dis-charge of a revolver. Women of easy virtue are to be seen promenading through the camp, habited in the gayest and most costly apparel, and receiving fabulous sums for their purchased favors. In fact, all the temptations to vice are present in full display, with money in abundance to secure the gratification, of the desire for novelty and excitement, which is the ruling passion of the mountaineer.

One "institution," offering a shadowy and dangerous substitute for more legitimate female association, deserves a more peculiar notice. This is the "Hurdy-Gurdy" house. As soon as the men have left off work, these places are opened, and dancing commences. Let the reader picture to himself a large room, furnished with a bar at one end—-where champagne at $12 (in gold) per bottle, and "drinks" at tweny-five to fifty cents, are wholesaled (correctly speaking)—and divided, at the end of this bar, by a railing running from side to side. The outer enclosure is densely crowded (and, on particular occasions, the inner one also) with men in every variety of garb that can be seen on the continent. Beyond the barrier sit the dancing women, called "hurdy-gurdies," sometimes dressed in uniform, but, more generally, habited according to the dictates of individual caprice, in the finest clothes that money can buy, and which are fashioned in the most attractive styles that fancy can suggest. On one side is a raised orchestra. The music suddenly strikes up, and the summons, "Take your partners for the next dance," is promptly answered by some of the male spectators, who paying a dollar in gold for a ticket, approach the ladies' bench, and—in style polite, or otherwise, according to antecedents—invite one of the ladies to dance. The number being complete, the parties take their places, as in any other dancing establishment, and pause for the performance of the introductory notes of the air.

Let us describe a first class dance—"sure of a partner every time"—and her companion. There she stands at the head of the set. She is of middle height, of rather full and rounded form; her complexion as pure as alabaster, a pair of dangerous looking hazel eyes, a slightly Roman nose, and a small and prettily formed mouth. Her auburn hair is neatly banded and gathered in a tasteful, ornamented net, with a roll and gold tassels at the side. How sedate she looks during the first figure, never smiling till the termination of "promenade, eight," when she shows her little white hands in fixing her handsome brooch in its place, and settling her glistening earrings. See how nicely her scarlet dress, with its broad black band round the skirt, and its black edging, sets off her dainty figure. No wonder that a wild mountaineer would be willing to pay—not one dollar, but all that he has in his purse, for a dance and an approving smile from so beautiful a woman.

Her cavalier stands six feet in his boots, which come to the knee, and are garnished with a pair of Spanish spurs, with rowels and bells like young water wheels. His buckskin leggings are fringed at the seams, and gathered at the waist with a U.S. belt, from which hangs his loaded revolver and his sheath knife. His neck is bare, muscular and embrowned by exposure, as is also his bearded face, whose sombre hue is relieved by a pair of piercing dark eyes. His long black hair hangs down beneath his wide felt hat, and, in the corner of his mouth is a cigar, which rolls like the lever of an eccentric, as he chews the end in his mouth. After an amazingly grave salute, "all hands round" is shouted by the prompter, and off bounds the buckskin hero, rising and falling to the rhythm of the dance, with a clumsy agility and a growing enthusiasm, testifying his huge delight. His fair partner, with practised foot and easy grace, keeps time to the music like a clock, and rounds to her place as smoothly and gracefully as a swan. As the dance progresses, he of the buckskins gets excited, and nothing but long practice prevents his partner fom being swept off her feet, at the conclusion of the miner's delight, "set your partners," or "gents to the right." An Irish tune or a hornpipe generally finishes the set, and then the thunder of heel and toe, and some amazing demivoltes are brought to an end by the aforesaid "gents to the right," and "promenade to the bar," which last closes the dance. After a treat, the barkeeper mechanically raps his blower as a hint to "weigh out," the ladies sit down, and with scarcely an interval, a waltz, polka, shottische, mazurka, varsovinne, or another quadrille commences.

All varieties of costume, physique and demeanor can be noticed among the dancers—from the gayest colors and "loudest" styles of dress and manner, to the snugly fitted black silk, and plain white collar, which sets off the neat figure of the blue-eyed, modest looking Anglo-Saxon. Yonder, beside the tall and tastly clad German brunette you see the short curls, rounded tournure and smiling face of an Irish girl; indeed, representatives of almost every dancing nation of white folks may be seen on the floor of the Hurdy-Gurdy house. The earnings of the dancers are very different in amount. That dancer in the low-necked dress, with the scarlet "waist," a great favorite and a really good dancer, counted fifty tickets into her lap before "The last dance, gentlemen," followed by "Only this one before the girls go home," which wound up the performance. Twenty-six dollars is a great deal of money to earn in such a fashion; but fifty sets of quadrilles and four waltzes, two of them for the love of the thing, is very hard work. As a rule, however, the professional "hurdies" are Teutons, and, though first-rate dancers, they are, with some few exceptions, the reverse of good looking.

The dance which is most attended, is one in which ladies to whom pleasure is dearer than fame, represent the female element, and, as may be supposed, the evil only commences at the Dance House. It is not uncommon to see one of these sirens with an "outfit" worth from seven to eight hundred dollars, and many of them invest with merchants and bankers thousands of dollars in gold, the rewards and presents they receive, especially the more highly favored ones, being more in a week than a well-educated girl would earn in two years in an Eastern city.

In the Dance House you can see Judges, the Legislative corps, and every one but the Minister. He never ventures further than to engage in conversation with a friend at the door, and while intently watching the performance, lectures on the evil of such places with considerable force; but his attention is evidently more fixed upon the dancers than on his lecture. Sometimes may be seen gray-haired men dancing, their wives sitting at home in blissful ignorance of the proceeding. There never was a dance house running, for any length of time, in the first days of a mining town, in which "shooting scrapes" do not occur; equal proportions of jealousy, whiskey and revenge being the stimulants thereto. Billiard saloons are everywhere visible, with a bar attached, and hundreds of thousands of dollars are spent there. As might be anticipated, it is impossible to prevent quarrels in these places, at all times, and, in the mountains, whatever weapon is handiest—foot, fist, knife, revolver, or derringer—it is usually used. The authentic, and, indeed, literally exact accounts which follow in the course of this narrative will show that the remarks we have made on the state of society in a new mining country, before a controlling power asserts its sway, are in no degree exaggerated, but fall short of the reality, as all description must.

SOURCE: Dimsdale, Thomas J. The Vigilantes of Montana, or Popular Justice in the Rocky Mountains. Virginia City, Mont.: Montana Post Press, D. W. Tilton & Co., 1866.