Vivacious Kitty Leroy

The Overlook

By Tom Clavin

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I have to thank the writer and historian Peter Cozzens for the subject of this column. While reading an advance copy of his next book, Deadwood, to be published in 2025, I found out about the vivacious Kitty Leroy, a performer and gambler who died 147 years ago this week.

Leroy was born in 1850 but her place of birth is unknown, though some sources suggest Michigan. Some reports written after her death claimed that she had begun dancing professionally by the age of 10.

Early in her life, Kitty apparently married a man named Captain E.H. Lewis of Bay City, Michigan. Tiring of the marriage, she left for the stage. From 1872 on her name appeared in newspaper advertisements as she toured the country, performing as a jig and clog dancer.

Her touring took her to Texas, where she met a man known as Raymond. For the next six years they lived together, during which time Kitty continued touring and performing. Sometimes she made the news for exploits of a less-artistic kind. In October of 1876, for instance, the Eureka Daily Sentinel reported on a tussle between Kitty and a performing partner, Maggie Kelly. She and Kitty did a clog-dancing double act.

After one performance, at the Alhambra Theater in Virginia City, they got into a physical fight in the green room, with Kitty reported to have thrown a bottle of black varnish amidst the altercation. Professional jealousies along with more fiscal matters -- a disagreement over commissions from the sale of wine -- apparently precipitated the fisticuffs.

Kitty and Raymond eventually travelled to California and then, in early 1877, to the Black Hills region. Once in the Black Hills, the couple called it quits.

She kept a saloon in Central City for a time, then moved to Deadwood, where she operated a gambling den, The Mint. Contrary to legend, there is no evidence that she ever traveled with Calamity Jane or other famous Wild West figures.

In addition to her renown as a performer, Kitty was skilled with cards. In particular, she was a faro dealer, and many gamblers patronized The Mint. Kitty's beauty and magnetic charisma were also well known and attracted many customers and other admirers.

One of the more persistent was Sam Curley. Soon after they met, he and Kitty married, in June 1877. Their union was officiated by a justice of the peace on the stage of the Gem Theater.

Alas, the marriage -- which may have been bigamous, based on Kitty's Michigan marriage to Captain Lewis -- quickly proved an unhappy one. Curley left for a different town, probably Cheyenne. In his absence Kitty and her longtime previous partner, Raymond, reconciled. Curley apparently found out. Traveling under a fake name, he came back to Deadwood.

He set himself up in the bar of the Lone Star Saloon. First, he sent for Raymond, demanding they meet, but Raymond refused. At some point, Curley allegedly told an employee of the Lone Star that he would kill Kitty and then himself.

According to an inquest held in the wake of the events, that evening Kitty borrowed money from her landlady to give to Curley, after which he was supposed to leave town and return to Cheyenne. But the next day, Curley sent a message to Kitty saying he wanted to meet. He went to a room on the floor above the Lone Star. Kitty arrived and joined him. Witnesses heard the sounds of conversation, then a scream, a gunshot, and another gun shot. Apparently a man of his word, Curley had murdered Kitty and then killed himself. Kitty Leroy was 27 years old.

A reporter from a local paper described the murder scene, which he saw that very day. In the upstairs room, it was evident Kitty had been shot in the chest and Curley in the head. Many citizens of the town came to see and pay their respects, viewing the bodies laid out in the same room where the murder had taken place. The town held a funeral, after which the two were buried.

Kitty evidently had a child, or possibly two. Some reports state that when she left her first husband, Captain Lewis, she took her son with her, and that this son now resided in Los Angeles, presumably with a family member.

The murder was widely reported, and Kitty's life, and death, were mythologized. Legends supposedly relating her actions and wild escapades quickly sprung up, spread, and endured. One was that she was a skilled trick shooter and talented knife-thrower, and that she would dress in unusual, "gypsy-like" clothing.

An especially bizarre legend claims that before coming to Black Hills she and a man headed to California, where they hoped to open their own saloon. Somewhere along the line, she left him for another man, whom she married. However, this marriage was extremely short-lived. According to one report, the two became involved in an argument, during which she challenged him to a gunfight. When he refused to fight her because she was a woman, she changed into men's clothing and challenged him again. When she drew her gun, he did not, and she shot him. As he did not die right away, she called for a preacher and the two were married. He died within a few days.

Another legend states that she married for a fourth time to a Prussian prospector. However, when his money ran out, they began to argue often. She hit him over the head with a bottle one night and threw him out, ending the relationship . . . and, pretty much, the wild stories about Kitty Leroy.

Tom Clavin is the bestselling author/co-author of 25 books. His latest book, Bandit Heaven, was published by St. Martin’s Press in October. Please go to your local bookstore or to Bookshop.org, Amazon.com, BN.com, or tomclavin.com to purchase a copy.