Libby Thompson

Elizabeth Thompson (born Mary Elizabeth Haley; 18 October 1855 – 13 April 1953) was a prostitute and dance hall girl who worked in Dodge City, Kansas and other frontier cattle towns during the 1870s. She later became famous as Squirrel Tooth Alice, madam of a brothel in Sweetwater, Texas.

Early life Born Mary Elizabeth Haley in Belton, Texas, Haley had a difficult childhood. The family lost its fortune during the Civil War, and in 1864 Comanche Native Americans raided the Haley farm in Texas and took young Haley captive. She remained a captive until 1867 when her parents paid a ransom for her release. From this point forward, Haley was a marked woman. Even though she was only thirteen, many people assumed that she had sexually submitted to the Indians during her captivity. Haley found herself shunned and ostracized from society. She soon took up with an older man who did not care about her past, but James Haley found the idea of an older man taking advantage of his daughter so objectionable that he shot and killed the suitor. Haley's reputation was soiled even further. In 1870, the couple left Kansas for Texas and for the next couple of years Billy punched cows along the Chisholm Trail while Haley continued working as a dance hall girl in various towns across the southern prairie.

In 1872, at the age of seventeen, Haley was plying her trade in the cattle town of Ellsworth, Kansas, while Billy worked the gambling halls.

After Dodge City, the Thompsons drifted to Colorado, but by 1876, they had moved to Sweetwater, Texas, which became their permanent home. In Sweetwater, the couple purchased a ranch outside of town and a dance hall in town. Mary ran the dance hall which was a front for a brothel. She was not embarrassed by her profession, and it was as a madam in Sweetwater that she became known for keeping her pet prairie dogs. These, along with a gap in her teeth, gave her the sobriquet, "Squirrel Tooth Alice."

Later life In 1897, after twenty-four years of marriage and nine children, Billy Thompson died of consumption. Libby Thompson continued running her Sweetwater brothel until she retired in 1921 at the age of 66. Although most of her sons had turned to crime and her daughters followed her into prostitution, she spent her elderly years living in Palmdale, California, among her various children's homes. On April 13, 1953, Libby Thompson died at the Sunbeam Rest Home in Los Angeles, California, at the age of 97.