The Legendary Life of Big Nose Kate, Love of Doc Holliday
by Chris Enss
Ms. Karen and I have been to Tombstone many times and we almost always dine at Big Nose Kate’s Saloon when we are there. We consider it the finest Old West saloon in America. So when I found out about this book on the life of BNK, I had to read it.
Of Mary Katherine Horony Cummings, also known as Big Nose Kate, Kate Elder, Kate Fisher, and Mrs. J. H. Holliday, Enss writes, she “was a working girl. Throughout most of her young life she was employed as a soiled dove – a woman of ill fame, a sporting girl, a prostitute. She wasn’t alone in that profession; hundreds of women entered the trade in the 1800’s. Some felt they had no other option but to become a lady of the evening, and others joined the industry of the fallen, believing they could make a fortune capitalizing on the vices of intrepid cowboys and pioneers.”
“It was Kate’s relationship with John Henry Holliday that brought her notoriety and lifted her out of the role as mere courtesan to that of common-law wife to the well-known gambler, gunfighter, and dentist.”
“Kate’s story of her life on the frontier as a soiled dove and her time with one of the West’s most recognizable characters has value. She was in her eighties when she dared to recall all that had transpired since leaving Hungary where she was born to the events leading up to the historic gunfight at the O.K. Corral.”
How Kate Became Known at “Big Nose”
“Kate wrote that she loved Doc. She wanted a life with him. According to Kate, the couple seemed to be on their way to settling down in Las Vegas, New Mexico, when the Earps arrived and disrupted the plans. Kate was annoyed by the intrusion and Wyatt Earp’s attempts to persuade Doc to leave Las Vegas and travel with them to Arizona.”
“Wyatt viewed Kate’s desire to keep Doc with her in New Mexico as controlling. He was critical of her need to know Doc’s plans and saddled her with the name she would never be able to shake. Because of this, Kate held a grudge against Wyatt the rest of her life.”
“ Kate Elder was strong willed. She made as much money as possible as fast as she could, spent it just as quickly, and outlasted most sporting gals of that time.”
“According to Kate, “I’ve been called many things. Some not so kind. I only ever cared what those I loved called me.” Not a bad attitude to have as a harlot and critic of Old West royalty. No doubt that’s how she survived as long as she did.”
“Since arriving in Dodge City in late May 1878, Kate had reacquainted herself with the cow town where she’d lived and worked in 1875. Dodge City was a wild burg that straddled the Santa Fe rails. Cowpunchers found it to be the best place to end a drive. The saloons were endless and always open. Gamblers found numerous individuals to challenge, sporting women swarmed like bees, and bad men frequently sharpened their aim on citizens. The men behind the badges in Dodge City were well-known western figures. Wyatt Earp, Bat Masterson, and Bill Tilghman all took turn at maintaining law and order in the trigger-happy town. How Kate Elder, from Pest, Hungary, came to be a fixture in a wide-open town primed with free-flowing money from the cattle trade and inundated by hordes of gunmen, outlaws, rustlers, and ladies of easy virtue was a question Kate pondered on a regular basis.”
Much of Ms. Enss’s book is Kate’s telling of her own story, supported by author’s comments for clarity. For example, “If Kate entered the profession because she felt her options were limited as an orphan and a woman, she stayed in the business after learning the power the line of work afforded. By far, they made the highest wages of American women. A sporting girl working for a madam was generally provided with free health care. Also, at a time when women were being told they could not and should not protect themselves from violence and wives had no legal recourse against being raped by their husbands, law enforcement agents were employed by madams to protect the women who worked for them. Many working girls and madams owned and knew how to use guns as well. Most women had no legal right to own property, but successful prostitutes could own land and real estate. Unlike other women, soiled doves could travel because they weren’t bound solely to the locations their husbands or fathers moved them to. Where gambling and drinking were forbidden by most women, prostitutes were fixtures in western saloons and became some of the most successful gamblers in the nation. Madams, those women who owned, managed and maintained brothels, were generally the only women who appeared to be in control of their own destinies. For a woman like Kate, whose life after her parents died had been directed by two different guardians, the idea of being able to determine her own fate must have been compelling.”
Kate had her run-ins with the law from time to time. And brawls with other working girls too. Laws were passed in the cow towns to banish prostitution, which drove Kate and other ladies of the evening to advance further down the line to the next boomtown.
As to Doc Holliday and Kate, Ms. Enss writes, “Kate was charmed by John but found him to be moody and cynical, especially when he was drinking. An author, historian, and descendant of Doc Holliday, Karen Holliday Tanner, noted in her book Doc Holliday: A Family Portrait that Kate was a worldly woman that Doc found to be his “intellectual equal.” Kate was strong and independent, and those qualities were attractive to Doc. “She, in turn, liked having and intelligent man with a proper upbringing and mannerly ways. It was a marked contrast to the raucous, unshaven, and crude men who were found in most cattle towns,” Holliday Tanner added.”
“I loved Doc,” Kate admitted in her memoir. I thought the world of him …” He was always kind to me until he got mixed up with the Earps. That changed everything between Doc and me.”
It must have galled Kate a few years later when she saw Doc with Wyatt, Morgan and Virgil Earp facing off against four Cowboys in a vacant lot on Fremont Street in Tombstone Arizona at about 3 o’clock on October 26, 1881. Kate was standing at a window of the Fly Boarding House adjacent to the vacant lot during the battle that became known as the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral and she says she saw it all.
Ms. Enss describes Kate’s journey from Hungary where she was born to the roughest American towns of the Old West, including Jacksboro, Texas, Trinidad, Colorado, Dodge City, Kansas, and of course, Tombstone, Arizona. During her stays in each community, Kate practiced the oldest profession, and Doc practiced dentistry and gambling. In many of these towns, Doc was involved with shootings, and they had to skedaddle to the next boomtown. In some towns, Kate was arrested for practicing her profession and paid fines.
The author chronicles Kate’s time at Cochise Station at the Rath Hotel, now the Cochise Hotel that Ms. Karen and I visited in 2019. This was after she and Doc had parted ways. There she was a housekeeper but left when she found out that the owner’s wife was related to the Cowboy faction that had the conflict with the Earps and Holliday in Tombstone.
The book ends with Kate at the Arizona Pioneer Home in Prescott and dying there at age 90 in 1940. She is buried in the Arizona Pioneers Home Cemetery. This book is an interesting read about an interesting life during an interesting time spent in interesting places in the American West. If you would like to read the book, you can purchase it here. According to Kate: The Legendary Life of Big Nose Kate, Love of Doc Holliday.
Chris Enss has written many books about women in the Wild West, you can find out more about Chris Enss here.
