Mother Featherlegs

Who was Mother Featherlegs?

"Mother Featherlegs" was a prostitute who lived near Lusk, Wyoming and was murdered during a robbery in 1879. She received her name because of the ruffled lace underwear that she favored. Her grave has been called the only monument in the United States to a prostitute.

Mother Featherlegs and a live-in companion arrived in the area around Lusk in 1876, and promptly established a whorehouse along the Cheyenne-Black Hills trail, at which establishment gambling and whiskey were supplied in addition to sex. Her companion, who called himself "Dangerous Dick" Davis, claimed to be a hunter and trapper, but spent most of his time lounging around the house instead. The house, little more than a dugout near a stream, soon became a refuge for bandits from the surrounding area, and they would frequently entrust jewels, money, and other valuables to the madam for safe-keeping.

One afternoon in the summer of 1879, Mrs. O. J. Demmon, the wife of a local rancher, rode to Mother Featherlegs' for a visit, having no one else to talk to. She discovered the madam's murdered body lying beside the spring; apparently she had been killed while filling a bucket with spring water, and had been dead for two or three days. Tracks in the area indicated that Dangerous Dick had murdered his companion and fled with the money and jewels she was holding for local bandits. Mother Featherlegs was buried quietly on the spot, her identity still unknown.