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1987.32.0013A, City of Greeley Museums, Permanent Collection.
Rattlesnake Kate with her string of rattlesnakes.

Rattlesnake Kate

By Colorado Public Radio Staff
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Struck by lightning once, married and divorced several times, Kate McHale Slaughterback was independent and resilient living on the Colorado plains. But rattlesnakes made her a legend.

October 28, 1925: a horde of snakes surrounded her on horseback with her 3-year-old. Kate shot those rattlers until her ammo ran out, then uprooted a sign to bludgeon the rest.

From that day on they called her "Rattlesnake Kate." She killed 140 vipers and skinned them all to make a dress. The story made the news in New York, and she traveled the world to tell it. But Kate Slaughterback came back to the high plains to raise her son and live out her days. Weeks before she died in 1969, she gave the snakeskin dress to the Greeley History Museum. And at the Platteville cemetery, you can look for her headstone that says simply: “Rattlesnake Kate.”

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Colorado Postcards are snapshots of our colorful state in sound. They give brief insights into our people and places, our flora and fauna, and our past and present, from every corner of Colorado.

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