Meet Ellen “Captain Jack” Elliot, Queen of the Rockies

“I do not fear man or devil; it is not in my blood, and if they can shoot any straighter or quicker than I, let them try it, for a .44 equalizes frail women and brute men, and all women ought to be able to protect themselves against such ruffians.” – Ellen “Captain Jack” Elliot, Queen of the Rockies.

She was a tough lady, eccentric and legendary as one of Colorado’s most colorful pioneers. Ellen Elliott was born on Nov. 4, 1842, in New Lentern, Nottingham, England. By the time she made her way to Colorado in 1880, the woman had suffered tragedy and loss.

In 1860, Elliott boarded the “James Foster” ship bound for America. While aboard, she met Charles E. Jack. The two were soon married after they settled in New York. When the country erupted in Civil War, Charles Jack served the Union, eventually rising to the rank of captain. During the war, Ellen gave birth to their first child, a girl. Not long after the war ended, the couple welcomed their second child, a boy. Tragedy struck the Jack family when both children later died of scarlet fever. The couple eventually had two more daughters. Sadly, one of the daughters died, again due to scarlet fever. Then not long after the death of their third child, Charles died in 1872, of an enlarged heart.

Devastated by so much tragedy and loss, Ellen Jack eventually placed her surviving daughter in the care of her sister-in-law and headed to the West. Her first stop was Denver where she learned of the gold discoveries in the Gunnison area on the western slope of the Rocky Mountains. In Gunnison, she opened a boarding house and with the income she was able to buy into a partnership in the Black Queen Mine, located between Crested Butte and Aspen.

It was at this time that history records her name as “Captain Jack,” which she had taken from her deceased husband. This was also the time when her colorful Colorado legend took on a whole new persona.

According to her autobiography, Fate of a Fairy or Twenty-seven Years in the Far West, Captain Jack was well accomplished with firearms, including pistols, shotguns and rifles. She wrote she was involved in several gunfights, including a few with local Indians. Traveling alone through the heavy snows in the mountains, she always carried a pistol and pick-ax to get her through the snow-packed passes.

She later said, “I do not fear man or devil; it is not in my blood, and if they can shoot any straighter or quicker than I, let them try it, for a .44 equalizes frail women and brute men, and all women ought to be able to protect themselves against such ruffians.”

Among the many events related in her book is a somewhat fanciful tale involving gypsies. Captain Jack relates that at the age of 7, she attended the Goose Fair in her hometown of Nottingham, where she met a gypsy queen who supposedly said to her mother, “The child will meet with great sorrows and be a widow early in life.” Whether the event is true or not, the prediction certainly proved to be correct.

In 1900, Captain Jack was living in Cripple Creek where she ran a boarding house for three years at the corner of Bennett Avenue and 4th Street. Nothing else is known of her time in Cripple Creek and her autobiography makes only one reference to her time there. In 1903 she had relocated to Colorado Springs where she operated a few rental cabins for tourists on the High Drive above Bear Creek Canyon. In a time when automobile tourism became a rage, Captain Jack set out to corner the new market. She set up an eclectic tourist trap complete with a curio shop featuring erotic pets including snakes and macaws. She regaled her customers with fanciful stories of magical gypsies and wild stories of her life.

Captain Jack became something of an oddity in the area of Colorado Springs. Rumors and whispers regarding her sanity floated around the city at the base of Pikes Peak. One of her many competitors was Nora “Ma” Gaines. She had a reputation in the town as well. Gaines was one of the first to capitalize on the tourist trade. She ran a hotel in town and was one of the many hoards of carriage drivers that clamored at the train depot to take the visitors, businessmen and tourists to their establishments. Gaines, who could out-smart, out-swear and out-fight any competitor, eventually out-smarted Captain Jack.

As Gaines launched a heavy marketing campaign, Captain Jack escalated her wild tales of her adventurous life. As time went on the Indian stories got wilder and the mountain tales included fights with beastly animals. She had photos taken of herself outlandish mountain garb, complete with pistols and shotguns, that she sold in her curio shop.

The photo captions, in her own handwriting read, “Mrs. Captain Jack Lost in the Mountains” and “Mrs. Captain Jack Looking for Mountain Lion.” Today copies of these photographs can be found on the Internet and often show up on eBay as the “original” photo card.

Meanwhile, Gaines’ tourist business was cutting into Captain Jack’s, forcing her to take out loans she was unable to pay back. Financial difficulties led to three separate lawsuits in 1906. Nearly broke, she became a recluse, living alone with her cats, parrots and burros. However, the wild tales continued. In an interview published in the Feb. 5, 1905, issue of the Gazette Telegraph, she claimed she had located a cave to rival the nearby Cave of the Winds, another tourist attraction. However, she said she was keeping the location secret until she could develop it as tourist destination.

In June 1920, heavy rains turned into a horrific flood, washing out the road to Captain Jack’s tourist cabins on High Drive. With her business virtually wiped out, and in ill health, 78-year- Captain Jack died the following year, on June 16, 1921.

She was buried in the city’s Evergreen Cemetery, where her tombstone ironically faces the High Drive. In another irony, “Ma” Gaines bought Captain Jack’s tourist property a few years later and operated it quite successfully.