Poker Alice House

See or stay in the Historical Poker Alice House, built in 1895. The Poker Alice House has 5 bedrooms, private and shared bath, and sleeps 10 people. Enjoy her historic accommodations and antiques. Great for reunions and meetings.

Email star-lite@rushmore.com for prices and reservations.

 

Poker Alice – Lucky Gambler

By Helen Rezatto

 

Poker Alice Tubbs smoked big black cigars. Of course, she had other claims to fame: she was a professional gambler, a madam, a crack shot and a murderer. And once she broke the casino bank at Silver City, New Mexico. Oh yes, she had three husbands and seven kids.

That’s just a bare listing suggesting the varied roles she played in life. No wonder she ranks not far behind Wild Bill Hickok and Calamity Jane as a famous personality enlivening Black Hills history.

Poker Alice was born in England about 1851, and with her parents immigrated to America where she grew into a beautiful young lady. She married her first husband Frank Duffield, a mining engineer and gambler in Colorado gold camps. After he was killed in a mining accident, Alice took up gambling full-time. She attracted customers with her glamorous appearance, and not even smiling while she raked in the chips for the house. When Alice was in the chips, she took off for New York to replenish her wardrobe of fancy low-cut gowns and ostrich plumes. An attractive dealer was always a come-on in the gambling business.

Not until the 1890’s did Poker Alice astonish Deadwood with her gambling skills. She married a Sturgis man named Warren Tubbs who painted houses during the day and gambled at night. Poker Alice, far luckier than he, often told him to leave the wheeling and dealing to her.

She and Tubbs and seven children, but mother Alice wasn’t the type to stay at home in Sturgis nursing babies, cooking, and bringing her husband slippers. Somehow the family survived, but when the children were grown, they disappeared; reportedly, she occasionally visited them but never let them return home for a visit.

For many years, Poker Alice with an impassive expression expertly dealt poker and faro games in the gambling dives of Deadwood. Legend says that she won more than $250,000 gambling in Deadwood, Sturgis, and other Black Hills Towns. Even after her beauty faded and she became a rough-talking heavy drinker, gambling customers continued to get a kick out of her company while placing their bets. Her favorite costume consisted of an old army shirt and a wool skirt. But the big black cigar became her trademark.

One memorable time in a Deadwood saloon she took time out from card-dealing to shoot a man in the hand that was holding a knife over her husband Warren Tubbs. She wouldn’t stand for male shenanigans.

When Warren Tubbs contracted tuberculosis, Alice gave up her lucrative gambling career and moved with him to a little ranch on the Moreau River, 100 miles from Sturgis, where she tried to nurse him back to health. Warren Tubbs died in the winter of 1910. With true pioneer courage, in below-zero weather, Alice brought his body in a horse-drawn wagon to Sturgis for burial.

After Tubb’s death, Poker Alice went back to work. She set up a sporting house and bootlegging establishment in Sturgis, frequented by soldiers from nearby Fort Meade. During a drunken brawl which became a shoot-out, Alice shot and killed one soldier and wounded several others. She was tried for murder, but the jury acquitted her on self-defense. Eventually, she was forced to close what was called her “disorderly house.”

An amusing folk tale about Poker Alice is how a nervous Sturgis banker loaned her several thousand dollars to make improvements on her sporting house and to enable her to travel to big cities for the recruitment of fresh prostitutes. She signed the note that she would repay the loan over several years time. When in a few months, she paid it all back with interest; the banker was overwhelmed with gratitude. Curious, he asked Alice if she had made a big killing at the poker table.

Chewing on her unlit cigar, she drawled, “No such luck. Happened like this. I was a-counting on the Grand Army of the Republic holding an Encampment at Sturgis, and I figured on the Elks Convention. But I was damn surprised and happy with them men attending the church conference.”

Alice, always the good business woman, married a deserving man named Huckert for her third husband: The story goes that she owed him a thousand dollars and marriage was the easiest way to pay off the debt. He died shortly after their marriage, and she took back the name of Tubbs, her second husband and father of her children.

After a hard life of booze and gambling and sporting houses, Poker Alice had a gall bladder operation from which she never recovered. She lit her last cigar and cashed in her chips at about age 79. She is buried in St. Aloysius Cemetery in Sturgis. Tourists often make pilgrimages to Poker Alice’s final resting place, perhaps hoping while they bow their heads in reverent silence that they might hear a deep voice from the grave saying , “Place your bets, gentlemen.”

 

The Poker Alice House

By Ted Walker

 

Alice Tubbs, the cigar-smoking card dealer from Deadwood purchased the 1895 two-story log home for $200 in 1910. It was located on the north side of Bear Butte Creek, close to Fort Meade Army Post, a mile from Sturgis SD. In 1910 it was moved by placing wood skids under it and pulled by a team of horses to the North end of Junction Avenue next to the Northeast end of the bridge that crossed Bear Butte Creek to Sly Hill Road. It was placed on a rock foundation. It had a kitchen, dining room, living room and two bed rooms on one floor. No closest or bath room. The clothes were taken from traveling trunks and there was no public water on that side of town.

Poker Alice decided the house wasn’t big enough so she went to the bank and got a loan for $2000.00 to build on the poker room and kitchen, which was her private living quarters. The balance of the house was used as a brothel and gambling hall. The present dinning room was used as her parlor, the living room was used as the dance hall, the poker room for card games, and the second floor for the brothel. Alice’s “disorderly house” was eventually put out of business.

After Poker Alice’s death in 1930 the house changed hands several times. Sorensons acquired the house in 1945 and made their home there until 1973 when the house was condemned because of its location on a flood plain. The house was vacant for nearly 20 years when the City of Sturgis took possession of the house with plans to demolish it. Ted and Barb Walker purchased the house from the City in 1987. They were going to restore it on the Bear Butte Creek location, but the City would not let them because of the flood plane.

At that time it was listed on the National Registry of Historical Houses, but lost its registration when it was moved on March 29, 1990 six blocks to 1802, Junction Avenue, Sturgis SD. The cost for the move was $3000.00 and it was then restored to its historical use by Ted and Arlynne Walker. The most interesting architectural feature of the home is the large number of doors. Each of the downstairs rooms and upstairs bedrooms has an exit to the outside. Even though fire was a constant and real fear, the number of escape routes suggests other concerns.

The house is now used as a guest house, sleeping 10 people with a private and shared bath. Free tours are available when you stay at the Star Lite Motel.