She raised crops and animals, hunted, and even made and sold bootleg liquor during prohibition to support herself. It was a hard life, and Kate struggled to make ends meet. Soon Jack left, leaving Kate to work the homestead by herself. They became dryland farmers, struggling to work 640 acres of land in a dry climate with no irrigation. In the early 1920s, she moved with her second husband, Henry (Jack) Slaughterback, to a homestead near the town of Hudson in Weld County. She married six different times in her life. Back to the PlainsĪfter the war, Kate moved back to the northern Colorado plains. During World War I, she nursed wounded soldiers at Fitzsimons General Hospital in Aurora. Kate graduated from high school and attended the St. The family was poor and barely supported themselves on their dryland prairie homestead. After her mother died in childbirth when Kate was two years old, she and her two brothers were raised by their father and grandparents. Katherine McHale, called Kate, was born on July 25, 1893, in a log cabin in Longmont. ![]() ![]() 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. In 1925 she became known as Rattlesnake Kate after she killed 140 rattlesnakes, allegedly in self-defense, in Weld County. ![]() Katherine Slaughterback (1893–1969) was a dryland prairie homesteader on the Colorado plains.
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