The year was 1919, and the small town of Lusk, Wyoming, was on the verge of an oil boom, ready to explode with an influx of lonely roughnecks and roustabouts. A young entrepreneur calling herself Dell Burke smelled an opportunity. With a nose for business and a soft spot for her neighbors, she soon opened the doors of what would become one of the most famous brothels in the West-the Yellow Hotel. 

For sixty years this beloved "Lady of Lusk" ran her business with flair and panache, a generous and essential part of this small western town. Even with a solid policy to never open her doors on a Sunday—she felt her customers should be in church—she was still successful enough to save the town from insolvency during the Great Depression. When she died in 1981 at the age of ninety-three, her estate was valued at over $1 million.