Al Swearengen

Who was Al Swearengen?

Ellis Albert "Al" Swearengen was a pimp and early entertainment entrepreneur in Deadwood, South Dakota, who ran the Gem Theater, a notorious brothel, for 22 years and combined a reputation for brutality with an uncanny instinct for forging political alliances.

Swearengen and his twin brother, Lemuel, were two of eight children of Daniel Swearengen and Keziah Swearengen of Oskaloosa. Unlike so many of Deadwood's residents who left home at a young age to make their fortunes on the wild frontier, Swearengen remained at home well into his adult years, arriving in Deadwood in May, 1876 with his wife, Nettie Swearengen. Nettie would later divorce him on the grounds of spousal abuse, and Swearengen would marry two more times, both marriages ending as the first.

Swearengen was one of the first Deadwood residents not to be a prospector or miner; he represented the beginning of a second wave of residents, attracted there by the promise of riches to be stripped not from the earth, but from the prospectors and miners. He built a small saloon called the Cricket Saloon, which featured as entertainment in its close spaces local miners engaged in what were advertised as "prize fights", although no prizes were actually awarded. Within a year, Swearengen had accumulated enough money to build the much larger and more opulent Gem Variety Theater, which opened on April 7, 1877, featuring the now traditional "prize fights" in addition to stage shows, and, mainly, prostitution.