Weird Wyoming: America’s Only Known Monument to Prostitution

If you travel across the Cowboy State, you will encounter some interesting road side attractions. Did you know that Wyoming is home to America's only public monument to a prostitute?

Just south of Lusk, on a desolate, dirt road off the old Cheyenne trail, you'll find a granite memorial to Charlotte "Mother Featherlegs" Shephard . Featherlegs, as she was known, opened a saloon and brothel in 1876, which quickly became a popular haven for vagabonds travelling west.

Tragically, her boyfriend, an outlaw named Dangerous Dick Davis double crossed her a few years later, leaving her lifeless body near the trail before fleeing the area with large sums of money and jewelry that "Featherlegs" had been hiding for other guests.

Nearly a century later, in 1964, a granite monument was erected in her honor, which reads, "Here lies Mother Mother Featherlegs. So called, as in her ruffled pantalettes she looked like a feather-legged chicken in a high wind. She was roadhouse ma'am. An outlaw confederate, she was murdered by "Dangerous Dick Davis the Terrapin" in 1879."

Her trademark 'pantalettes' remain on display at the Stagecoach Museum in Lusk, Wyoming.