A Wild West Journey with Julia Bulette (Nonfiction)-Part 1

I'd first read of the famous Wild West madam Julia Bulette in Seagraves's book Soiled Doves, a collection of vignettes detailing some of the Old West's hardest-working ladies of the evening. Consolidating information from this book and from her museum in Virginia City, I learned that Julia Bulette was a woman who came to Virginia City, Nevada in 1863. According to her museum in VC, she was one of the best-known for running a brothel locally until her murder in 1867. While the museum information says that she was murdered by a "drifter," I don't doubt that he was one of the clients in her house.

Her violent death struck me as having a tinge of the unresolved, though it was supposedly attended by many. My first source on her, a Gardnerville, NV local, told me that her supposed gravesite is in Flowery Hill Cemetery. Upon first arriving in VC, I learned that Flowery Hill was a tiny community through Six Mile Canyon and as of this day, does not have a documented cemetery. I'll call this Theory 1 on her burial. After finding her museum, cafe and general Red Light District museum in the city, I asked at that location if any of the employees knew the whereabouts of her burial. The woman publicizing tours out front did not, but she directed me next door to the Silver Dollar Hotel to ask for a gentleman named Troy, who could help me.

I found Troy and he introduced himself. He seemed to have made multiple contacts in the past with ghost hunters who wanted to find out more. His claim was not that Julia had been buried in Six Mile Canyon, but that her body may have been moved out to Pioneer Cemetery, far out on the Comstock Trail. At that moment he turned me to the window behind him and pointed to a small white water tank on the hill outside of town. He then explained the supposed directions to reach the site of her memorial: a simple wooden cross with her name on it. Walk down Washington street to the end where you find the trail heads and the dump site, turn left at the dump site, and keep walking on the trail staying on the leeward side towards us. My city slicker brain was already feeling disabled by inability to use GPS, but I knew that it wouldn't help. Troy also offered the theory that the lore around Julia's burial had possibly been conflated with the stories of other madams working in the area about the same time, and that her memorial was more of an emblem than a verified location. I'll call this Theory 2.

Feeling confused on a hot day and highly hesitant about hiking out into the wilds of VC alone, I set out around the corner to look for Washington Street.

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