Jan. 21, 2010 - In a state that has provided and hosted some legendary gamblers, one of the most successful and dedicated was a woman known as Lottie Deno, who plied her trade in Texas for several years after the Civil War.
Lottie Deno was born Carlotta J. Thompkins in Kentucky, in 1844, the eldest daughter of a wealthy plantation owner. She apparently adopted the name Lottie Deno in Fort Griffin, following a card game in which it was suggested that she had manipulated the element of chance in her favor. One of the sore losers suggested she be called "Lotta Dinero." And so Lottie Deno she became.
Lottie's father, in between raising Kentucky racehorses and crops on the family plantation, liked to gamble, and he did so at some of the finest gambling casinos in the world. He took his daughter along on many of these trips and taught her to play poker, along with a few tricks of the trade that would come in handy when she turned to gambling for a living.
That it came to be was attributed, as were so many falls from fortune during that time, to the Civil War. Her father was killed in battle, leaving management of the plantation to Mrs. Thompkins and her two daughters. Lottie, along with her nanny, a seven-foot tall black woman named Mary Poindexter, went to Detroit in hopes of improving her prospects.
In Detroit, she met a jockey named Johnny Golden, who had ridden for her father. The two shared a mutual interest in gambling and, working their trade on the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers under the protective gaze of Mary, apparently did quite well for themselves. Her family in Kentucky promptly disowned her, partly because of the gambling and partly because Johnny Golden was Jewish.
At the height of the Civil War, in 1863, the two split up with plans to reunite in San Antonio. It took Johnny six years to find his way to San Antonio, during which time Lottie had become a house gambler at the University Club where she met and fell in love with a man named Frank Thurmond.
Johnny Golden finally showed up on the scene and claimed that he and Lottie were married, which Lottie denied. Frank had to flee to West Texas after he supposedly killed a man during a card game. Lottie left in search of Frank, gambling her way across West Texas and settling for a time in Fort Griffin.
Just as Lottie had gone off in search of Frank Thurmond, Johnny Golden went looking for Lottie Deno. He found her in Fort Griffin, but got himself killed the next day behind the saloon where she and Thurmond worked. Thurmond went by the name of Mike Fogerty while he was in Fort Griffin, which was the kind of town where you didn't have to produce a lot of identification.
The heart of the Lottie Deno story occurred in Fort Griffin, an outpost strategically located by the U.S. Army near the convergence of two cattle trails. The town hosted some of the most notorious gunfighters and gamblers of the day, including Bat Masterson, John Wesley Hardin, Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday.
In her position as a house gambler at the Bee Hive Saloon in Fort Griffin, Lottie probably had at least a nodding acquaintance with these men, especially Holliday. A poker game between Lottie and Holliday reportedly resulted in a $3,000 net profit for Lottie.
Lottie always dressed in the most stylish fashions of the day and did not allow smoking, drinking or cussing at her table. Cheating was allowed, as long as she was the one doing it.
Lottie and Frank eventually left Fort Griffin and settled in New Mexico. Frank got into another altercation in New Mexico, and the man with whom he quarreled ended up dead. The killing was ruled self-defense but the incident apparently was a turning point in their lives together. They married, swore off gambling and settled down to a more conventional way of life.
Frank became a successful businessman and vice-president of the bank in Deming. Likewise, Lottie settled in as a well-respected member of the community. Her two lives converged when she hosted a poker game featuring Doc Holliday to raise money for the construction of St. Luke's Episcopal Church in Deming. The effort raised $40,000.
Frank and Lottie remained together until Frank died in 1908. Lottie lived until 1934, but her name and her story have endured. She lives on in popular culture as the basis for the Miss Kitty character on the long-running radio and television series "Gunsmoke."
