Jennie Rogers

(b. Pittsburgh, July 4, 1843- d. Denver 1909; b. Fairmount Cemetery under the name Leah Wood).

Leah J. Tehme ran through several marriages and even more names before arriving in Denver in 1880. She gravitated to Market Street, the wickedest street in the Rockies. On that boulevard of the bagnios, she bought a small parlour house from Mattie Silks and began recruiting the most seductive brides of the multitudes. These solicitous sisters of perpetual indulgence made Jennie’s place an intimate haven where gentlemen could enjoy the finest cigars, the best of brandies, and the most nubile of discreet companionship.

Rogers’s friend and competitor, Mattie Silks, was Denver’s most-famous madam, but the six-foot-tall, hot-tempered, statuesque Rogers—never seen in public without her emerald earrings—was the classiest act in the Denver demimonde. No one messed with Jennie, not even her lover Jack Wood. She once shot him and then blurted to police those immortal words of a woman scorned: "I shot him because I love him, damn him!"

Jennie’s ample bust crowns the pediment of her restored House of Mirrors at 1942 Market Street. Carved into the facade below her are the busts of men she supposedly blackmailed to build this most elegant of all Colorado cat houses. Jennie’s sumptuous house boasted a dining room, three parlours, a ball room, a wine cellar and 15 bedrooms. The mirrored ceilings captured the grand piano, a golden harp, crystal chandeliers, oriental rugs, bird’s-eye maple woodwork—and some marvelous anatomical wonders.

Jennie splendiferous House of Mirrors aroused the envy of Jennie’s rival, Mattie Silks, who bought the place in 1911 and installed her name in the entry tile. Now converted to a restaurant, night club and museum of shady ladies, this restored brothel is a monument to the two smart, entrepreneurial women who made Denver a favorite stop for cowboys, miners and other lonely men throughout the Rockies. They found the House of Mirrors unforgettable—and so will you.

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