"Poker Alice," Old West Figure, Died After Operation

Article taken from The Helena Daily Independent, February 28, 1930

 

Rapid City, S.D., Feb. 27 (AP)

"Poker Alice" Tubbs, 77, picturesque character of the Old West where she was a fixture in the mining camps of the gold rush era, coppered her last bet today and lost.  Ironic was the fate which permitted her to come unhurt through numerious gambling gun fights to die after an operation.

From the Pecos to the Colorado through gold fields, Tonopah and Butte, "Poker Alice," in the 80's dealt her cards.  Faro here, chuck-a-luck there, and now and then a bit of craps, they were all the same to the girl.

Associate of the "big shots" of border days, Alice numbered among her acquaintances "Wild Bill" Hicock, "Calamity Jane," "Deadwood Dick, "Tex" Rickard and others who took their whiskey neat, their cards high.

As she was deft at dealing cards, so was she equally agile at handling the six-gun, the only law recognized in the hectic days of Tombstone, Carson City, Dodge City and on the Brazos.

Born in Devonshire, England, Alice came with her folks to American and went into the gold and copper mining country.  There she married a mining engineer, while she was in her early 20's.  It was from him she learned the relative values of a straight flush in competition with aces on tens full.  Soon her ability with the cards or over a roulette wheel attracted the proprietors of the gambling houses, who bid for her favors and when Alice dealt, sweaty pokes of gold dust clinked on the table.

Bearded miners "fresh from the creeks, dog dirty and loaded for bear," swarmed around the table when Alice dealt the cards.  It is tradition of the country that disputed bets were settled by a glare from Alice where nothing less than pistols would have sufficed had a man dealt.

Beaten back with a frontier as the Santa Fe and other roads pushed westward, Alice followded the trails to the north, then back to the east.

Down in Arizona this season, back to her Nevada next, Leadville, Colorado or Deadwood in the land of the Dakotas, might see her next.

In Silver City, New Mexico, she was a novelty at dealing and her claim to having made $6,000 in one sitting, as her share of the house game, went undisputed.

The romance with the mining engineer ran out as did the veins of gold sliced out of the western creeks, and Alice married W. G. Tubbs, known as a big-time Greek of his day.  Tubbs found Alice's luck more dependable than his own and went into an eclipse allowing Alice to handle the bets and bankroll for the family.

Years later Alice married George Huckert of Sturgis, South Dakota, but after his death she resumed the name of Tubbs.

Between her engagements as a dealer for others, or chances she took at operating her own games, Alice found time to take part in the rush for "free lands", when Oklahoma was partly tamed and thrown open to settlers.

To participate in the rush, however, Alice was forced to ride relays from her home to the homestead territory of the southwest.

In the rush for land, Alice was again thrown into contact with the lawless of the white and red races.

Then nature, whose needs had long been denied in the long nights under kerosene lamps over card tables, and the smoking pistol, started tolling off the lives of her playmates.

One after another they died, some in their boots, others in a lone prospector's camp, under the Colorado skies, or a crawling, choking death on the alkaline Nevada desert.

Alice went east, back to Sturgis and her cabin on the sunny side of Near Butte creek.  A brush with the prohibition law started her on the way to jail, but she was pardoned by Gov. W. J. Bulow who said:  "I can't send a white-haired old woman to jail on a liquour charge."  Complications followed her recent operation.

Today, she died, and another page in the book of western lore was turned.