Gals, have you heard the story of Colorado's Rattlesnake Kate Slaughterback? 🤎 Katherine McHale was born in a log cabin near Longmont, CO, in 1893. She attended nursing school in Denver, and during WWI, nursed wounded soldiers. After the war, Kate returned to the northern Colorado plains; she married and divorced six times during her life. Her second husband was Jack Slaughterback; in the early 1920s, they moved to a homestead near Hudson, in Weld County. Jack soon left, so Kate worked the homestead herself. She raised crops and animals, hunted, and made and sold bootleg liquor during Prohibition to support herself. When neighbors were unable to raise their child, Kate adopted their son, Ernie, and raised him as her own.

On Oct. 28, 1925 (100 years ago this year), Kate and 3 year-old Ernie were on horseback, headed to a pond near her property, hoping to find ducks left by recent hunters. Leaving Ernie on the horse, Kate walked towards the pond. She found herself in the middle of an autumn rattlesnake migration, when hundreds of rattlers gather in dens for the winter. Kate fired her rifle until no bullets remained, but she, her horse, and Ernie were surrounded. Kate grabbed a three foot-long wooden "no hunting" sign, used it as a club, and battled the snakes for two hours to get back to her horse and Ernie. She rode home, exhausted but unharmed, and returned with a neighbor the next day to collect the rattlesnakes. She had killed 140.

Real or embellished, Kate's story was reported in Colorado newspapers. With a photograph of her with the snakes on a line outside her house, her story spread nationwide. She recognized an opportunity and called herself Rattlesnake Kate for the rest of her life. She made herself a flapper-style gown with the snakeskins and a choker necklace with the rattles. She wore it for photographs and events, and later claimed that the Smithsonian Institution had offered to buy it for $2000. Kate learned taxidermy and raised rattlesnakes on her homestead, selling skins and rattles, and served as a nurse during WWII. She learned how to milk rattlesnake venom (by making snakes bite into a sponge), and sold it to scientists that made antivenom for snake bites.

Kate lived and worked on her homestead until her death in 1969 at 76. Before she died, Kate donated her rattlesnake gown to the Greeley History Museum, where it is displayed with her rifle and other artifacts. Her small cabin, built by Kate herself, was purchased by the city of Greeley and moved to Centennial Village, a living history site near town.