Lottie's Legacy


I just watched Lottie's Legacy (S17 E7) on Encore Western. Basically tells the story of Lottie Deno, the most famous poker playing woman in the Wild West.

On Lottie's Legacy, Lottie is living a double life - in one, she is Lottie, the gambler who can beat any man at cards. In the other, she is engaged to a preacher who absolutely loathes gambling, believing it to be a sin. She has told the preacher that she is a schoolmarm.

There is a shooting at the end of the episode and when Lottie comes outside of the saloon to tell what happened, the preacher is there, and sees her in her gambling get up. She tries to pretend she is someone else but he only replies that he is sorry, he confused her for someone he once loved.

At the end of the episode, Robert Taylor says that the preacher builds a new church with money Lottie had provided him and he either comes back into town to repay her or to win her back but by then she has left and R.T. says she is never heard from again.

Well, I found that extremely intriguing, so I hopped online to find out more about her life. But her Wiki is very different from her Death Valley Days episode. There is no double life as a schoolmarm engaged to a preacher. Her Wiki says that Lottie fell in love with a fellow gambler, they opened a gambling room, got married and later gave up their gambling and led respectable lives - he as a Vice President of a bank, she as one of the founders of St. Luke's Episcopal Church.

I have looked up several other episodes as I always find the show interesting but have never seen such a discrepancy before. Anyone have any more information on this? I realize Death Valley Days may have just changed the story but I haven't found that to be the case when I have looked up other episodes.

Any insight is appreciated!

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