Who is Mattie Silks?
Mattie Silks, one of the scandalous madams in the red-light district of Denver called The Row, chose her entrepreneurial business at the age of 19. Just following the Civil War, Mattie traveled and opened houses where she styled herself "madame" and not "madam," never being a "girl" herself. She eventually found her way to Denver where she set up a house in 1877.
Though Mattie was in a common-law marriage to a Mr. Silks, who had a daughter, Mattie met, fell for, and eventually married the gregarious Cort Thompson, well known for his infidelities and temper - and penchant for spending Mattie's money!
To keep Cort away from her business - and away from the ladies - she purchased a ranch in Wray, Colorado and indulged in racehorses. Cort died in 1900 and is buried in Denver's Fairmount Cemetery.
Mattie next married Jack Ready - a diamond lover and Mattie's bookkeeper - keeping it all in the family. Business had been good, but growing pressures from City Hall and prohibition on the loom, Mattie succumbed to Denver authorities, but remained opened for business as a hotel, using her "girls" supposedly as maids.
Location, location, location eventually brought Mattie's hotel operation in The Row to a close and she sold up in 1919. In the end, she lived a life with money, but died at Denver General Hospital at aged 81 on January 7, 1929, with only a few thousand dollars to her name. She is buried in Fairmount Cemetery under the name "Martha A. Ready."
Denver acknowledged her house at 2009 Market Street as an historic preservation landmark, complete with brass plaque, entitled MATTIE SILKS HOUSE.
