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Speaker 1: Now this is an unbelievable story. A minister's daughter, Bell Cora,

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Speaker 1: was pregnant at seventeen, then a gold rush prostitute aka

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Speaker 1: a soil dove, then, with the support of her gambler boyfriend,

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Speaker 1: one of the most successful and richest madams in San Francisco,

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Speaker 1: and finally tied to two notorious murders. All that before

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Speaker 1: her death at just thirty four. I'm Patty Steele, making

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Speaker 1: a fortune and losing your life in the sex trade.

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Speaker 1: That's next on the backstory. A backstory is back. Belle

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Speaker 1: Cora was born in Baltimore in eighteen thirty two or

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Speaker 1: perhaps eighteen twenty eight, it's not very clear. She was

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Speaker 1: the child of a minister and his wife. Bell was

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Speaker 1: a beauty with long, dark hair, pale skin, hazel eyes,

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Speaker 1: and a voluptuous body, and she wanted adventure. At sixteen,

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Speaker 1: she fell in love with an older man, and by

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Speaker 1: seventeen she was pregnant. Her boyfriend decided no thanks, and

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Speaker 1: he abandoned her. So imagine being a pregnant teenager in

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Speaker 1: the eighteen forties with a strict minister for a dad.

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Speaker 1: Not easy. Belle wanted to keep her baby, and she

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Speaker 1: decided the only thing she could do was run away

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Speaker 1: and head south, landing first in Charleston, South Carolina. There

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Speaker 1: she got involved with kind of a sketchy guy who

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Speaker 1: was killed in a dispute pretty soon after she met him,

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Speaker 1: so within a few months of her arrival in Charleston,

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Speaker 1: she took off for New Orleans. She gave birth to

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Speaker 1: her baby, but the baby died, leaving her devastated and

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Speaker 1: very alone. Belle had few options until a well known

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Speaker 1: New Orleans madam took her in. She fed her, clothed her,

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Speaker 1: and no surprise, eventually offered her work in her brothel.

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Speaker 1: Belle accepted, and within a few months she was earning

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Speaker 1: more than any woman in New Orleans. And that's where

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Speaker 1: she met Charles Cora. He was a well known professional

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Speaker 1: gambler and was immediately obsessed with Bell and the two

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Speaker 1: became an item. Now it's eighteen forty nine, and when

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Speaker 1: news of the California gold rush reached New Orleans, Charles

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Speaker 1: wanted in and the couple headed west. They basically began

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Speaker 1: touring the gold boom towns and started making a fortune.

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Speaker 1: He is a gambler in bell as a soiled dove

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Speaker 1: by eighteen fifty they'd opened a successful business north of

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Speaker 1: San Francisco called the New World Gambling Parlor. It was

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Speaker 1: a huge success, and they quickly opened another one due

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Speaker 1: east of San Francisco, again a huge success. Now flush

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Speaker 1: with cash, in eighteen fifty two, they decided to try

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Speaker 1: to conquer San Francisco itself. They opened their third business,

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Speaker 1: called the Cora House, and it was super lavish. People

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Speaker 1: said there was nothing to rival it on the West Coast. Customers,

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Speaker 1: including many of the city's big shots, were treated like royalty,

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Speaker 1: enjoying the best champagne and or d'uvs, along with their

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Speaker 1: choice of the city's absolutely most beautiful women. By eighteen

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Speaker 1: fifty three, Bell was San Francisco's number one madam, charging

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Speaker 1: the highest prices in the business and attracting powerful men

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Speaker 1: from across the US. She was called the most well

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Speaker 1: dressed woman in San Francisco, but it didn't last long.

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Speaker 1: During the height of the gold Rush, gambling and prostitution

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Speaker 1: were all a really big part of the San Francisco

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Speaker 1: social scene and its business culture too. There were very

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Speaker 1: few women in the city in those days. Mostly men

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Speaker 1: had arrived who were without family, and they were looking

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Speaker 1: to make a fortune, so prostitution was a very popular

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Speaker 1: business in that period. Just in one eight square block

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Speaker 1: area there were more than one hundred brothels operating. But

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Speaker 1: by eighteen fifty five, gold fever had pretty much petered out,

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Speaker 1: and in came the moralists, mostly arriving from the East Coast.

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Speaker 1: The first laws against gambling and prostitution had just been passed,

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Speaker 1: and there was increasing pressure on city officials to shut

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Speaker 1: down the gambling joints in the brothels. And then came

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Speaker 1: the beginning of the end of the story. One evening,

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Speaker 1: Belle and Charles hosted a gala event at Cora House. However,

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Speaker 1: it was on the same night as a party thrown

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Speaker 1: by US Marshall William Richardson and his wife. Well, as

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Speaker 1: you can imagine, the Richardsons had way fewer male guests

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Speaker 1: than did Belle and Charles. Missus Richardson was outraged that

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Speaker 1: a party thrown at a fancy gambling and prostitution venue

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Speaker 1: would compete with her party. Not long after, when the

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Speaker 1: couples were seated in the same balcony at the theater

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Speaker 1: with the most expensive seats in the house, the Marshal

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Speaker 1: tried to have the chorus thrown out, but the theater

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Speaker 1: manager refused, saying they were their wealthiest customers and they

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Speaker 1: weren't going to get rid of them. Words were exchanged

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Speaker 1: and Richardson apparently insulted Bell, and that started a bitter

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Speaker 1: feud between the two men. Two days later, Richardson approached

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Speaker 1: Cora in front of of a saloon and the two

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Speaker 1: walked toward the waterfront. They started to argue, and Charles

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Speaker 1: Kurra then shot the marshal in the head with one

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Speaker 1: of the two derringers he always carried with him, killing him.

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Speaker 1: He maintained the other guy had a gun. Other people

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Speaker 1: not so sure. He was quickly arrested, and Bell immediately

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Speaker 1: hired the most expensive lawyer in San Francisco to defend him.

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Speaker 1: Where it is. She even tried to bribe several witnesses

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Speaker 1: as well as a jury member in one case, even

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Speaker 1: had her henchmen threatened a female witness with a dagger.

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Speaker 1: It was the big his story in San Francisco, and

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Speaker 1: after a nasty trial ended in a hung jury, the

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Speaker 1: public finally was actually favoring a lesser charge of manslaughter.

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Speaker 1: But then there was another murder, this time of a

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Speaker 1: newspaperman who had attacked both Bell and her husband, as

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Speaker 1: well as a corrupt city council member. Well, the councilman

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Speaker 1: shot and killed the newspaperman. Now folks went nuts. Things

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Speaker 1: were just out of enough with the corruption, enough with

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Speaker 1: the gamblers and harlots, they screamed, said one paper. The

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Speaker 1: harlot who instigated the murder of Richardson and others of

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Speaker 1: her kind are allowed to visit the theaters and seat

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Speaker 1: themselves side by side with the wives and daughters of

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Speaker 1: our citizens. Because only the men were citizens, a group

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Speaker 1: called the Committee of Vigilance was born. Six thousand armed

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Speaker 1: citizens independent of city Hall and the police, decided to

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Speaker 1: fight what they thought was the rampant crime and corruption

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Speaker 1: going on in San Francisco. On May eighteenth of eighteen

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Speaker 1: fifty six, over two thousand of them descended on the jailhouse,

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Speaker 1: demanding the sheriff hand over both Cora and the councilmen

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Speaker 1: for a people's trial. The sheriff refused, but then changed

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Speaker 1: his mind when a loaded cannon was pointed at the

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Speaker 1: jailhouse doors. Amazing, how that can change her mind. Two

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Speaker 1: days later there was a people's trial and both men

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Speaker 1: were convicted and sentenced to hang. Belle was allowed to

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Speaker 1: stay in Cora's cell and married him there, and just

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Speaker 1: two hours later he was hung with thousands of people watching.

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Speaker 1: The execution of Charles Cora really marked the true end

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Speaker 1: of the Gold Rush. The days of out in the

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Speaker 1: open gambling and prostitution wild partying was replaced by law

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Speaker 1: and order. Belle secluded herself in her bedroom for a

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Speaker 1: month after the execution, and depending on the story you believe,

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Speaker 1: she either then sold cora house and lived quiet life,

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Speaker 1: or most probably she turned to opium and chloroform and

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Speaker 1: continued to run her brothel for another six years. Records

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Speaker 1: are unclear, but either way, when Belle was just in

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Speaker 1: her early thirties, she died from pneumonia caused by the

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Speaker 1: habitual abuse of chloroform. Belle Cora, in California's most notorious

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Speaker 1: woman and richest sex worker, the woman who was central

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Speaker 1: to the formation of the largest vigilante movement in US history,

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Speaker 1: was dead before she was thirty five years old. Hope

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Speaker 1: you're enjoying the backstory with Patty Steele. Follow or subscribe

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Speaker 1: free to dm me if you have a story you'd

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Speaker 1: like me to cover. On Facebook, It's Patty Steele and

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Speaker 1: on Instagram Real Patty Steele. I'm Patty Steele. The Backstories

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Speaker 1: a production of iHeartMedia, Premiere Networks, the Elvis Durand Group,

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Speaker 1: and Steel Trap Productions. Our producer is Doug Fraser. Our

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Speaker 1: writer Jake Kushner. We have new episodes every Tuesday and Friday.

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Speaker 1: Feel free to reach out to me with comments and

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Speaker 1: even story suggestions on Instagram at Real Patty Steele and

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Speaker 1: on Facebook at pattime. Thanks for listening to the Backstory

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Speaker 1: with Patty Steele, the pieces of history you didn't know

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Speaker 1: you needed to know.