Mattie Silks, or Martha Ready[1] (1846[2]– 7 January 1929[3]), was a prostitute[4] and leading madam in the late 19th century American West.

According to author Jan MacKell Collins, many historians are of the opinion that she may have worked as a freighter on wagon trains.

[5] Having worked as a prostitute in Abilene, Texas and Dodge City, Kansas, she became owner of a brothel in Springfield, Illinois, in 1865.

[4] Collins also makes the case that historians agree Silks placed a sign on one of her first parlor houses which read, "Men taken in and done for.

[1] Silks and four girls she hired in Kansas City traveled to Denver by way of stage coach and freight wagon.

It was her habit to set up camp below town, she explained, "because prospective patrons would more willingly walk down a mountainside than climb it.

Before purchasing property in Denver, she rented a house on Holladay Street where she conducted business.

According to Collins, the Denver Daily Times reported thatKatie and Mattie had an argument following a footrace.

Katie received the worst of it: During the fray she was punched, knocked down twice, and kicked in the face, breaking her nose.

Afterward, as Thompson returned to Denver in a buggy, another carriage pulled up beside him and he was shot in the neck, though not fatally.

Her real estate included a ranch in Yuma and a fashionable home at 2635 Lawrence Street, away from the Red-Light District.

[12] In 1898, Madam Jennie Rogers opened the House of Mirrors in Denver, and quickly became more successful than any of the competition.

[12] She continued to work as a madam, traveled, and invested in real estate, becoming a very wealthy woman.

Sources are unclear as to whether Mattie married Mr. Silks or lived with him as a common law wife; Collins is of the opinion that at the very least Mattie and Silks lived together as common law husband and wife for a couple of years.

Katy Ordway, author of Shady Dames of Denver, described Cortez as a gambler with propensity towards violence.

She was buried under the name Martha Ready, beside her longtime lover Cortez Thomson, in block 12-lot 31, of Fairmount Cemetery in Denver.