Thread by @marinamaral2

Katherine Slaughterback was a dryland prairie homesteader on the Colorado plains. In 1925 she became known as Rattlesnake Kate after she killed 140 rattlesnakes, allegedly in self-defense, in Weld County.

Kate later used them to make a dress.

On October 28, 1925, Kate and three-year-old Ernie were riding their horse near their homestead. Some duck hunters had been shooting at a pond, and she hoped they had left behind some wounded ducks that she could take for supper.

Leaving Ernie behind on the horse, Kate dismounted and walked toward the pond. She saw a rattlesnake, a common sight on the Colorado plains, and shot it with her rifle. Three more rattlesnakes reared up, ready to strike, and she shot them too.

Then she was suddenly surrounded by angry rattlesnakes. Unknown to her, she had happened to walk into the middle of a fall rattlesnake migration. The snakes were migrating back to their dens to hibernate for the winter.

The sound of Kate’s gunfire had startled them into attacking. Out of bullets, she allegedly grabbed a “No Hunting” sign and used it as a club. According to legend, she battled the snakes for two hours.

Then, exhausted but unharmed, she returned to her homestead.

The next day, she and a neighbor went to collect the snakes. Counting the bodies, she found that she had killed 140 of them.

Slaughterback recognized an opportunity and called herself Rattlesnake Kate for the rest of her life.

Kate added to her income by hunting and raising rattlesnakes, selling skins for $2 and rattles for $1. After learning taxidermy, she crafted dead rattlesnakes into lifelike sculptures.

Her story, which is likely an embellished combination of myth and fact, made her famous across the country, and she remains a local folk hero, with her rattlesnake-skin dress and other artifacts displayed at the Greeley History Museum. t.ly/flEn