A transformation was beginning in the gold boom town of Leadville, Colorado. Not only was the town itself beginning to pick up once again as lode gold was discovered in the region in 1868, but a young woman was beginning her own journey into becoming a legendary figure.
That woman was Eva Ivers, who would eventually be known across the nation as Poker Alice. But having just traveled to Colorado with her family, she was still just a young girl who had a refinement to her. That would all quickly change, as her life became a whirlwind. Once the dust settled, there was no more Eva, only Alice, and her past would largely be buried under a mythical persona.
A First Marriage. Maybe.
It wouldn’t take long for Eva’s life to change once in Colorado. Having moved to the area in 1868, with her family, it would soon appear as if she was on her own. At most, only 17 years old, Eva had to begin creating a new life.
In most retellings of her life, this would start with a marriage to a Franklin Duffield. But as with her name, there may have been a bit of fibbing.
Frank is most often described as a mining engineer in Lake County Colorado, who died from an accidental explosion. The problem; no such Frank seems to have existed.
Often, one of the biggest issues facing historians is the lack of records. In this case though, we are lucky enough to find a compilation of mining accident reports in Colorado. In 1884, an accident at the Crested Butte coal mine resulted in the death of 59 men. This inspired the State of Colorado to pass legislation which required mining companies to file reports of both fatal and nonfatal accidents.
That only gets us so far. While that legislation would make searching for accidents after 1884 extremely easy, Frank would have lived prior to that time. We would be looking at some time most likely in the 1870s. Here, we get lucky once again, as other researchers have combed through prior records, and have complied what amounts to most mining fatalities, dating as far back as 1844.
While it was only in 1884 that a centralized reporting system was put into place, prior to that reports were still filed, just not in an organized manner. This does give the possibility that those records before 1884 may be lacking in some instances, but it gives us a place to start. And Frank simply doesn’t appear in any report.
The closest we get is a John Codizio. He ticks two boxes we are looking for. He was a mining engineer, and was killed by explosion in Lake County. But that still is a long way from who we are looking for. Searching for Duffield, nothing comes up. Looking at variations, only 2 Duffs show up, but they don’t fit the man we are looking for.
So what does that mean? While it appears unlikely a Frank Duffield was a mining engineer who died in an explosion, we could simply be missing a key report. It’s time to cast our nets out further and widen our search.
Diving into local newspapers comes up empty though. As does census records, marriage or death records, land records, and even city directories. Our last bet was cemetery records. But combing through those turned up nothing. If anyone knew of a Frank Duffield, they hadn’t said a thing. Nor did Alice really even mention him, besides mentioning that he died. It may be that Glen Ghere, a former resident of Rapid City who claimed to have sat down and listened to Alice recount her life, was correct in his retelling. According to Glen, Alice told him that she was never married before Warren Tubbs. There just isn’t a Frank Duffield.
Or specifically, the Frank Duffield that Alice described didn’t exist. Again, we have to cast a wider net, and finally, we catch something. A couple of Frank Duffields do appear to have lived in Colorado, near where we can place Alice, at the right time. And one of those Franks appears to be connected to Alice, but it doesn’t appear they were married.
While they weren’t married, it would appear as if they had a son, who was born in 1869. Alice was only 18 years old. This son would be named George, and eventually settled in the Pennington County, near Rapid City, where he would have little if any contact with his mother.
For most of Alice’s life, George doesn’t seem to have played a major role. During the final years of Alice’s life, according to her will, we get the picture that her family, including her living children, didn’t pay much attention to her, and thus were disinherited.
Later on, some would assume that George was the son of Warren Tubbs, who had married Alice and was probably her first marriage, but according to Warren’s obituary, he was said to have been survived by two-step children. We can be sure George was one of those.
What happened with George is a bit unclear. Four years after Alice died, he would be rescued from near death as he collapsed from exhaustion on a railroad line while traveling to Hill City from Hot Springs. Other than that, he appeared to stay out of the news.
Part of the issue though is that there was another George Tubbs who lived in Custer, that could easily get confused with the son of Alice. However, in the end, it doesn’t appear that he truly despised his mother, as one of the certain things we can know about him is that he would go on to name one of his daughters Alice.
The Colorado Myth
Alice was now largely alone, a single mother in the wild west. This is one place where the myth and the reality largely become one. By all accounts, in order to make ends make, Alice took up the cards. She also took of robbery. And as generally told, it appears that Alice traveled rather extensively, especially in Colorado.
These travels would be expanded in the 1880s, as railroads began connecting more of the nation. She would travel as far south as El Paso Texas, and even venture into New Mexico and Wyoming. But for the most part, she seemed to have centered her explorations in Colorado.
A quick aside. Part of the issue with researching Alice Tubbs is that Tubbs wasn’t an uncommon name. In Canadian, Texas, another Alice Tubbs, one married to a George Tubbs, had made a life and name for herself. Another lived in Kentucky for awhile, and yet another in the southern Black Hills. While it is tempting to conflate all these individuals, we have to be careful not to do such. Now back to our Alice.
Tradition generally holds that Alice learned to gamble by watching her first husband, Frank, at the tables. But with Frank not having been the man tradition speaks of, where Alice learned to play is a bit more questionable. A few stories suggested that Alice learned to play from her father.
Wherever she learned to play, we can be certain that she used her good looks to her advantage, distracting her opponents. Her game of choice was Faro, and eventually she would become a dealer; a novelty that gaming houses were happy to pay for.
For Alice, she was in the right place at the right time. While lode gold was discovered in 1868, in 1879, a silver boom would occur in Colorado, giving Alice a new batch of individuals to milk. And by then, she was getting good enough to really start making a name for herself.
Alice would pick up a few nicknames over the course of her early years. She would attempt to bill herself as the Queen of Faro, while others would dub her corduroy Alice, based on how she dressed. It wouldn’t be until she came to South Dakota that her most famous name would be passed on to her.
She was also picking up something else as well, which would prove to be much more valuable; knowledge and stories. Alice would begin planting the first seeds that would eventually blossom into her mythical legend. She would pick up just enough information in order to begin weaving her own tales, that would later be repeated as they were taken as fact. Soon they wouldn’t even be questioned.
Many of the stories she would eventually tell appear to be more myth than fact though. In 1927, Alice would sit down with Courtney Ryley Cooper with the Saturday Evening Post of Philadelphia, and there we would get one of the best overviews of her early life before her time in the Black Hills. We would also get some of the best evidence that much of her story just didn’t line up.
Easy Come, Easy Go
In speaking with Cooper, Alice would begin by reliving her journey to the town of Creede, Colorado, in 1891. After she, and her 3 companions, trekked over the Colorado Rockies, they would enter the town of only 7 people, which included the wife of the person who discovered the local silver, Nancy Creede.
The issue; the population of the town was a few thousand. They had arrived in Creede during the middle of the boom, when the town had grown from 600 people in 1889, to 10,000 in 1891. That and Nancy wouldn’t marry Nicholas Creede until after Alice had left. Not to mention, Nancy most likely wasn’t in Creede at the time.
What this episode does tell us though is that Alice must have kept tabs on some of those larger-than-life figures who her path could have crossed over the years. Doing such would make her tales more convincing, as they could be sprinkled with facts.
Another quick aside. While Nancy Creede may not be well known today, she made headlines around 1897, when her husband, Nicholas Creede, a man who not only founded the town of Creede, Colorado, but was well known for striking silver time and time again, passed away. A few years prior, the couple had separated, and when Nicholas died, a fight formed over his massive fortune. The drama captured the nation, launching Nancy into the limelight. Again, back to our Alice.
It would also be in Creede that she would claim to have seen Bob Ford, the man who killed Jesse James, killed in the gambling hall she was working. She also would claim that the fire a few days prior had sent her away from Creede. This fire, on June 5th, 1892, would engulf the gambling hall of Ford, destroying it. While Ford would quickly throw up a tent, as many businesses would after the fire, it was no longer a gambling hall.
An eyewitness, Cy Warman, who was in a hotel across the street and the editor of the local paper, also suggests that Alice wasn’t there, as the only woman he had seen in the bar was an office clerk. Alice was no where to be seen.
Upon further digging, many of her stories appear to be similar. The overall facts are correct or close. But then she places herself on the margins of the event, almost like a real life Forrest Gump.
A similar mention that Alice recounts is how she saw Calamity Jane at Fort Fetterman in Wyoming. According to Alice, she was dealing “faro in old Fort Fetterman when the soldiers were there.” She most likely was referring to have been in Orpha, Wyoming, which was across the river from the fort, and was well known for releasing the fort’s soldiers from their money.
The issue with the story is that Calamity Jane’s own account of her being at Fort Fetterman is probably legendary at best, as is much of her accounts of serving with the military. For instance, she claimed to have joined with George Custer at Fort Russell, a fort where there is no evidence Custer ever served. Most soldiers who would have served with her, if her accounts were historical, were nearly unanimous that she didn’t serve in any capacity with a military outfit. Those who do remember her, in 1875 with the Jenney expedition to the Black Hills, and in 1876 with Crook’s army, remember her as a prostitute or a camp follower.
While Alice may have been in Orpha, Wyoming, it’s unlikely she ever saw Calamity Jane, who’s own story is highly dubious, but well known nonetheless as Jane was happy to spread it anywhere she could.
Much like Calamity Jane, Alice would begin to spin her own legend, and newspapers would eventually be quick to pick it up because such stories sold. Legends were created through the print, and those benefiting from them, such as Calamity Jane and Alice, weren’t quick to put a stop to them.
Coming to Deadwood
For nearly two decades, Alice would wander the west. While it would later be claimed that she would break the bank in places like New Mexico, and that it wasn’t uncommon for her to take home $6,000 in one night, when she arrived in Deadwood, she was broke.
She would arrive in the town around 1893, under the name Alice Cummings. In just a couple years, she would make a name for herself, but not for good reason. Her early appearances in the local newspapers would be based on assaults with deadly weapons, such as against a Morris Jacobs, or for theft. She would also be arrested on occasion for frequenting saloons, which was against the city ordinance in Lead.
Alice would quickly become known as a notorious character in the area, and it was around this time that the name Poker Alice stuck. However, it wouldn’t start as a term of endearment, or even respect. The earliest accounts suggest it was meant as an insult, as Alice was always poking her nose where it didn’t belong.
Poker Alice would gain an early reputation of not only poking through other people’s belongings, and taking with her their valuables, but also because she would find her way into other people’s conversations.
For nearly a decade Alice would be in and out of the jail system, being arrested primarily for theft. But through all this we also get a deeper glimpse into a few facts about her.
In 1899, Alice would once again be arrested, while staying in Sturgis. The charge was once again theft, from a man for whom she was keeping house. She would stay with him for a short while, but in the fall of 1899, after claiming she needed $45 to send to her children, she left with not only the cash, but also with his watch.
What this story once again confirms, or appears to confirm, is that Alice did in fact have children before meeting Warren Tubbs. Taking everything into consideration, it would appear that Alice had multiple children before meeting Warren, and that later, Warren would accept those kids as his own.
Warren Tubbs
It’s often said that Alice would meet Warren around 1890 at Bedrock Tom’s saloon in Deadwood. However, according to Alice’s own account, she wouldn’t come to Deadwood until around 1893. And then, she was known as Alice Cummings, and would be known as such until around 1900.
Not much is known about Warren Tubbs. What we can gleam from census data is that he came to South Dakota around 1877, as a young man. He was 8 years younger that Alice, and until 1905, was single. He would be known as a hard worker though, making a name for himself as a house painter.
No marriage certificate can be found for Warren and Alice, but that they were married seems to be one of the most secure facts when it comes to Alice. But it wouldn’t be a long marriage. In 1909, Warren would pass away after a fight with tuberculosis.
Whether Alice and Warren were officially married doesn’t seem to matter here, as it was Warren who captured the heart of Alice. While they were together, Alice seemed to change her ways. She vanished from the papers, and seemed to hang up her life as a thief.
How many children Alice and Tubbs had together is unknown, but none would survive into adulthood, if they had any at all. By the time the two met, Alice was already in her 50s, and while not impossible to have children, it would have been incredibly unlikely. According to Warren’s obituary, he would be survived by no kids of his own, but by two step-children.
The two would spend the rest of Warren’s life outside of Sturgis, on a little piece of land, away from the city and Alice’s vices. When Warren eventually did succumb to death, Alice was greatly effected. Even though she would be married again, it was the name Tubbs that she was buried with.
With the death of Warren though, Alice would explode back onto the scene, and her legendary stature would soon become cemented. But that’s a story for another time.