Petticoat Prisoners of Old Wyoming

Petticoat Prisoners of Old Wyoming

By Larry K. Brown

What offenses did these women commit to cause them to be locked away for the protection of the citizens? These twenty-three women, wearing frills, lace, and their best bonnets, became guests at the Gray Bar Hotel in early Wyoming.

Some of these petticoat prisoners may have been a threat to society: Anna Bruce baked poison into her father’s plum pie; Eliza “Big Jack” Stewart shot a man in the neck at a dance. Others seem only to have been at the wrong place and time.

• • 0-931271-56-8 • trade paper • index • 256 pp • photos • $14.95 ORDER NOW
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Petticoat Prisoners of Old Wyoming

By Larry K. Brown

“…Petticoat Prisoners is a book that deserves its place among the varied histories that fill the shelves of private collections and public and academic libraries which offer the serious reader meaningful works on Wyoming and the West."
•• Walter Jones, Annals of Wyoming

Larry K. Brown

Larry K. Brown is the author of five books and many magazine articles. His interests in the fields of crime, women’s history, and the Old West have converged to become a writing specialty for him. His Petticoat Prisoners of Old Wyoming was a recipient of a coveted Wyoming State Historical Society “Publications Award,”and he served as guest editor for a “Collector’s Edition” of True West magazine which featured “hellcats, strumpets, and other wayward women” of the Old West.

His other books include two additional titles in his Wyoming criminal history trilogy, Hog Ranches of Wyoming: Liquor, Lust, and Lies Under Sagebrush Skies and You Are Respectfully Invited to Attend My Execution. Released in 2003 was Coyotes and Canaries: Characters Who Made the West Wild . . . and Wonderful! and in 2007 Bad in the Good Old Days.

His articles have appeared in numerous nonfiction anthologies as well as in such prominent periodicals as Wild West, True West, Old West, American Cowboy, Cowboy, and the National Cowboy Museum’s Persimmon Hill.

He and his wife Florence live in Cheyenne.