She was called “Featherlegs” because her lace trimmed red pantalettes made her limbs look like chicken legs and she was often known to gallop across the prairie riding astride a horse with her lacy ruffles flowing in the wind.   When one of her customers commented that she looked just like a feather-legged chicken, the nickname stuck.  A middle-aged auburn-haired woman, she ran the establishment along with an outlaw who was called Dangerous Dick Davis.  In no time, the saloon and brothel became a favorite gathering place for Dangerous Dick’s cohorts.  Mother Featherlegs was often entrusted with large sums of money and jewelry, that she would hide for the outlaws until they could safely dispose of them.

But for Featherlegs, the prosperity was not to last.  In 1879, when a woman named Mrs. O.J. Demmon, the wife of a Silver Springs rancher, took a ride along the trail, she found the madam’s murdered body next to the spring. Having laid their for several days,  moccasin tracks like those worn by “Dangerous Dick” were found around her body.  Featherlegs was buried where she died.  Meanwhile, Dangerous Dick had skipped the country, along with her cache of money and jewelry.

With the booty in hand, Dangerous Dick returned to the swamps of Louisiana, which had long been his preferred choice for his outlaw activities.  However, a couple of years later he was found there and charged with robbery and murder.  Before he was hanged, he confessed to having killed Mother Featherlegs and told the world that her real name was Charlotte Shephard.

The 3,500 pound pink granite monument was erected in 1964 in conjunction with a reenactment of the Cheyenne-Deadwood Stage run. 

The inscription reads:

Her lies Mother Mother Featherlegs. So called, as in her ruffled pantalettes she looked like a feather-legged chicken in a high wind. She was roadhouse ma'am. An outlaw confederate, she was murdered by "Dangerous Dick Davis the Terrapin" in 1879.